Is a one time use ugly hash really a big deal?
I agree - it's not.
My experience of it -
A few months ago I downloaded the wallet and tried to transfer some funds from bter - I was caught in the catch 22, no funds to register, no way to get funds until I registered. That was a real barrier.
Recently I downloaded again - this time I can transfer to the ugly hash from bter. No problem. Just need to make sure exchanges will transfer to ugly hashes, and worry about bigger issues.
In the short term, most new users are going to be coming from a Bitcoin background and will be perfectly at ease with an ugly hash. The id will come as a pleasant surprise.
(All that said, POW registration is elegant, but over-engineered for what is required)
With no comment about Alphabar's particular idea, people really need to get away from the idea that account names are of such importance. Few will try to remember a BTC address for obvious reasons. However they will try to remember a name. One can go look up 100s of studies (ok, number out of my butt) in sociology showing how fallible human memory is.
It really comes down to reframing what these addresses are. Do not call them "addresses". Call them "account addresses" or something. Everyone thinks of marketing and framing solely in reference to adoption. These sort of discussions should also be had about named accounts vs hashes. Bounce rates etc are analogous - cut out all these crap middle steps. If the assumption is that people are cut and pasting addresses, then having a long string is no significant loss.
I'd need to think more, but it almost seems like allowing an "account number" where we are no longer encoding in an alpha-numerical base would be an improvement. Just make it numerical. It is all cut and paste anyway. I'm not pushing this idea, but really consider these things.
Arhag and Freetrade both agree with the meat of this post AFAIK. These are 2 people I have an excess of respect for in their opinions.