I believe there are proposals to allow pruning the blockchain, but I'm not 100% sure on the details.
To guarantee a transaction goes through you have to wait for it to be confirmed, but most transactions really aren't that important/high risk, so beyond checking that the address does actually have the money, it's instantaneous. Many payment processors (I know Bitpay has this option) actually take the 0 confirmation transaction risk, allowing customers to pay instantly.
Transaction fees are not high, with a typical fee of .0001 bitcoin (3 cents), which is small compared to credit card fees. While work needs to be done converting to/from cash, actually using bitcoin (that you already have) to buy things is a better experience than using credit cards. You simply grab your phone, scan the QR code, and hit send. This is much better than entering your credit card for the thousandth time on another website, or being redirected to paypal, entering your password, and choosing your preferred payment option for the thousandth time (stop asking me to use Paypal Credit!).
Using an Android wallet such as Mycelium, or a desktop wallet like Electrum doesn't require you to download the entire blockchain, and although that comes at the cost of some trust, I personally don't find that problematic.
Basically, bitcoin has some problems, but I think some of your criticisms are no longer applicable to most everyday usage of it.
To guarantee a transaction goes through you have to wait for it to be confirmed, but most transactions really aren't that important/high risk, so beyond checking that the address does actually have the money, it's instantaneous. Many payment processors (I know Bitpay has this option) actually take the 0 confirmation transaction risk, allowing customers to pay instantly.
Transaction fees are not high, with a typical fee of .0001 bitcoin (3 cents), which is small compared to credit card fees. While work needs to be done converting to/from cash, actually using bitcoin (that you already have) to buy things is a better experience than using credit cards. You simply grab your phone, scan the QR code, and hit send. This is much better than entering your credit card for the thousandth time on another website, or being redirected to paypal, entering your password, and choosing your preferred payment option for the thousandth time (stop asking me to use Paypal Credit!).
Using an Android wallet such as Mycelium, or a desktop wallet like Electrum doesn't require you to download the entire blockchain, and although that comes at the cost of some trust, I personally don't find that problematic.
Basically, bitcoin has some problems, but I think some of your criticisms are no longer applicable to most everyday usage of it.