I believe the bitcoin network can handle the load, look at the hashing power we now have online with ASIC's and this number continues to rise.  It will actually make transaction fees more "profitable" for miners in pools paying or sharing these fees.

Mtnminer

Actually, the hashing power has no direct relation to the transaction handling capacity of the network.
At the moment, the main limit seems to be block size and frequency - as the number of transactions per time unit increases, so does the size of each block, but the block size is currently limited to 1 MByte which roughly translates to 7 transactions per second.
Here's an article on the topic: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/12/bitcoin-needs-to-scale-by-a-factor-of-1000-to-compete-with-visa-heres-how-to-do-it/

Onkel Paul

No

there is also the Color Coins project which will not only add transactions, it will multiply the RATE of transactions perhaps by a factor of thousands(perhaps even hundreds of thousands- there is no limit).

at the minimum, having a full block chain copy will be impossible for the average user, further compromising the p2p aspect.

False.

They are the biggest pool, but they do not control "most mining power". Their share has also decreased significantly in the past week.

Observe: http://blockchain.info/pools

No it can't. It is currently limited.
I'm just asking what the devs are doing with their time..