WAY too many issues being mixed up here... I'm sorry I ever framed this as "moving the decimal point"
I think the next release of Bitcoin should:
+ Show full-precision bitcoins in the GUI. If you have 1.5 BTC, it will display as it does now ("1.50").
If you have 1.50001 BTC, it will display the extra precision.
+ Allow you to send full-precision from the GUI and from JSON. If you have 1.500001 BTC, you will see
you have that many and can send that many.
+ Incorporate luke-jr's patch to avoid losing "dust change", when possible. (e.g. if you have received transactions of 1.5000001 and 20 BTC, and then send 1.5, Bitcoin shouldn't choose just the 1.5000001 input transaction).
Those issues are being driven by pooled mining-- a lot of people are getting sub-cent bitcoins from their pooled mining shares.
Then there's the issue of "what is a micro-transaction for which you should be forced to pay a fee." Currently, it is any transaction with an output less than 0.01 BTC.
And the issue of "what is the minimum fee" (also currently 0.01 BTC).
Ideally, transaction fees should reflect real-world costs... although just making them hidden costs that are spread between everybody running bitcoin might work perfectly well. Still, I'd like to get a rough idea of the real-world cost of a transaction.
It is too early to be worried about "paying 0.001 bitcoins for a pair of socks".