Honestly, I don't think the future of bitcoin is running "heavy" nodes on our personal computers.
I think the vast majority of people will be using bitcoin through web or mobile apps in the not-too-distant future. So I'm not personally inclined to put a lot of effort into splitting the node and wallet, unless that makes creating lightweight web and mobile apps easier.
That said, the new QT gui does a much, much better job of letting you know what bitcoin is doing, both during initial startup and initial blockchain download.