I personally don't mind the extended time of being verified so I can watch the market and absorb as much information as possible about BTC before I am verified on MtGox.

But it does seem to be a barrier for the less patient(read as everyday consumer) that they have to go through multiple steps other than just punching in their debit card information in exchange for some bitcoin goodness.

Today, when the price dropped to 104, I almost pooped myself, not because of the oppurtunity of buying low and selling high, but because of the fact that I could scoop up some coins to use for a little bit cheaper then the 120 wall I thought would continue to persist.

But, I'm 2 weeks in still waiting to get verified by GOX to use some funds from dwolla. But that's all good, I see no quick demise for BTC in the near future, and paying a little more later on doesn't bother me too much.

BUT before I digress further I see this being a problem for the mast majority of new comers to BTC, such as many of my co-workers that only see this as an investment opportunity akin to a "stock" in their mind. My question is, how do we make this as accessible as say a transaction on steam or paypal?

I think a great business venture would be to streamline the concept of bitcoin and the process of obtaining/using bitcoin to the point that it's easy enough for your co-worker who thinks a server is down because it doesn't respond to ping to understand.

A sort of "Shapes and Colors" website for BTC, with pretty buttons and minimal user input