Thus, the situation is not much alarming if one's transaction is confirming within 10-15 minutes with fees of just 1 dollar.
So even if $1 is high for using Bitcoin for daily transactions, it isn't much high for making remittance or overseas payments. So it can act as tough competitor to Paypal or MoneyGram. If such utility to Bitcoin can be created, it is already better than just being investment.
I agree this simply show that the August hardfork is quite effective in minimizing transaction and making confirmation faster. I was onced paying a high amount for transaction and after the hardfork, I pay less and it confirms much faster than before. There is nothing we can do about transaction fee, unless the code themselves fixed it, we will be paying whatever the price of the current setup for transactions fee.