Sick of the confirmation time...

[MegaFall]

What should happen is if a block takes more than 15 minutes to find, the difficulty should temporarily plunge.

Also, how can that be implemented without a central time server?

Does each node not have the time of the last block? When the clock on each node is over 15 minutes from the last block, send out a request to other nodes to confirm that they too agree it's been over 15 minutes, if there is a consensus among say 60% of the nodes that the time since the last block was over 15 minutes, then temporarily reduce the difficulty until the next block is found; then it goes back up to where it was.

What happens if I'm a new node that just finished syncing, and receive a 20-min block with reduced difficulty? I have no way to know an agreement has happened, and will reject the block.

So? You'd be one node of the thousands... you're rejection should have no bearing on what the other nodes do... once the other nodes confirm the block and a subsequent one, would your node not then accept it as being part of the chain and move on? Seems highly illogical and a major flaw in the design if it wouldn't.

[R2D221]

What happens if I'm a new node that just finished syncing, and receive a 20-min block with reduced difficulty? I have no way to know an agreement has happened, and will reject the block.

So? You'd be one node of the thousands... you're rejection should have no bearing on what the other nodes do...

That means that if your proposal was accepted right now, there would only ever be 7118 nodes for ever and ever. No new node will be able to join because they see an invalid blockchain.

once the other nodes confirm the block and a subsequent one, would your node not then accept it as being part of the chain and move on? Seems highly illogical and a major flaw in the design if it wouldn't.

Highly illogical? It's the other way round. A node shouldn't care what the other nodes do, it should be able to validate the blockchain on its own. If not, then we start to add trust to the system, which is precisely what Bitcoin is designed not to need.

[LibertyRemains]

If you're tired of the confirmation time you are probably gambling and waiting for your deposits to clear...   
For most everything else it is not really a concern. I mean I could see how you would be tensely waiting for a confirm if sending millions of dollars worth of BTC in one transaction or something, but for everyday purchases and whatnot it's not really a big deal in my opinion.

[leopard2]

LTC confirms much faster.

This is a disturbingly common misconception.  The security afforded by a 2.5 minute average confirmation block is 1/4 that of a 10 minute average confirmation block.

IT might be 1/4 as much security, but, at least for that first confirmation, you can at least see that it had valid inputs. That is worlds more security than accepting a zero confirmation transaction.

Thanks btcbobby. Sometimes posting here is like talking to a rock  

for a small purchase the security of LTC is PERFECT!!

now for a real estate transaction, the conf. time of BTC, compared to the fiat transaction that takes days, is also PERFECT

Jedem das Seine!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedem_das_Seine

[Meuh6879]

LTC is supported ... by nobody.
https://bitcoinwisdom.com/litecoin/difficulty

[opossum]

If you're tired of the confirmation time you are probably gambling and waiting for your deposits to clear...   
For most everything else it is not really a concern. I mean I could see how you would be tensely waiting for a confirm if sending millions of dollars worth of BTC in one transaction or something, but for everyday purchases and whatnot it's not really a big deal in my opinion.

That is the thing most gambling sites you don't even need a confirmation and some others just the one that is never really a problem i am not sure why it annoys the op and some others i am not to fussed with the wait it should never be longer than 45minutes although i have has a few transactions that have taken a few hours that was annoying but it was a one off so not to bad.

[hikedoon]

Everything's relative.
 I got paid by cheque 2 week's ago and it took 10 days to clear in my Building Society account.
  and the parasite's still had the nerve to charge me for it too.

[kolloh]

Slow confirm times can be annoying sometimes, but most of the time it's not too big of an issue. It is usually less processing time than fiat methods of exchanging money anyhow.