Question about block generation

[Tawsix]

I am wondering why blocks are generated only once every 10 or so minutes.  Why not halve or quarter the time it takes to generate a block and lower the reward by the same amount so that transactions can be confirmed faster?  I feel like the confirmation of transactions is currently the weakest part of bitcoins, and that it makes them extremely inconvenient if they ever become a currency used in real life transactions.

[Raulo]

It is arbitrary but it is a reasonable tradeoff between confirmation time and network consistency. If the blocks were created every minute or so, there will be a lot of "collisions", situations where blocks are created at almost the same time that result in the chain fork. Now, the chain forks are rare.

[Timo Y]

A Paypal transaction takes 6 months to confirm.

That I call extremely inconvenient.