Obviously. But that's the bigblocker counterargument right there: "Who are you to tell me that my transaction is spam/dust/invalid/not worthy" etc etc... They continue by saying "if I pay fees, I must get included!!!". They could also say, in the above scenario, "I'm paying 100% fees over the transacted amount, while others are paying 0.x% in percentage... is this fair?" etc etc.
I don't really know. I don't make the rules. The fee rules are in the code and in the nodes that run on it, the miners, the whole network. The rules are based on the size of the transaction and the priority of the unspent inputs.
It used to be I could send small amounts with no fees. I'm not complaining now that I'm almost always required to spend more on fees. I understand how it works, maybe you do too. But according to the other devs there are all sorts of complications that arise if you change the one line of code that limits the block size.
The nodes just relay or forward your transaction. Anyone can change the logic of the nodes they control to forward or relay transactions with small or no fees.
The miners are the ones that actually confirm or include your transaction in a block.
I guess, the most apt saying is the one about "you get what you pay for"... You pay more, you get better chance (but no guarantee) of a confirmation. If you don't pay, you can always wait. I don't know if that's fair or not, although it looks fair to me.
Like you mentioned, if blocks become 1 GB in size, we'll eventually run into the same problem.
