You think that's bad?
The bad thing is: Once you come forward and suggest implementing a solution, (the third-party signed transactions for example) someone comes along screaming:
"Reversible transactions!!111 Do not want! BTC is no credit card!!"
People need to get the head out of their asses and look at theses issues from a systematic perspective instead of sticking to some fundamentalistic agenda.
I don't understand how third-party signed transactions protect people from scams.
Certain kinds, for example the kind of exchange "hacking" we've seen on a regular basis couldn't been pulled off if an exchange wouldn't have direct access to the funds.
I'm not saying that this is the silver bullet, and you are right people need to act responsibly. But it's not the only thing that has to be done either.
How I see it people run around spreading the word that bitcoin it "perfect", part out of greed to give it more userbase part out of fear that innovation could harm their speculative investment if it goes wrong. I am not saying we should hard-fork the existing mechanisms but provide improvements where it is necessary. In this example the possibility to do third-party signed transaction wouldn't hurt anybody, everybody who doesn't like the feature or has no use for it can use regular transactions all they want.
Again: The main thing hindering innovation is this irrational fear that any improvement might backfire and make the investment worthless. This has no basis in reality, nobody will think of bitcoin to be worth less because of some added feature... to the contrary it will probably boost it.
You want reversible transactions via the protocol?
What's wrong with being a Bitcoin supporter because of the current properties of Bitcoin? This is why I'm here. I don't want protection. I want strong money. Bitcoin is strong money. I'd guess that's why Bitcoin has grown as fast as it has. People value it's properties.
The protocol doesn't need changed. If you are so certain you know how to run things, build a layer on top of Bitcoin and make bank catering to all of the people who want protection.
See this is exactly the kind of fear I am talking about.
Again adding to it, you could still do regular transactions all you want. Don't like to get paid by someone else using it? Just don't accept it. (You can tell)