These are things that I think has to be dealt with in order for regular peope (read not tech-savvy) to be able to cope using this system.
While I agree with this statement, it's not for the reasons you've described here.
You paid a lot of attention to cpu, hdd, and net usage while experimenting with bitcoin. The not tech-savvy people will do no such thing. Not tech-savvy people usually don't know which version of windows they are using, how much RAM they have, or the speed of their internet connection.
Anyway, it's nice to hear that you are enjoying bitcoin so far. Perhaps in the future you could create a guide that would help the spread of bitcoin to the not tech-savvy!