>It's obvious to me that many of the Bitcoin critics in this thread have never actually used it.

I've used it, not much though - maybe $100 worth of bitcoins.

>Purchases aren't tracked

List of transactions from your wallet is visible to anyone.

>being sucked up by some SIGINT program

As far as you know, but I wouldn't be surprised if your transactions are "sucked up" by some SIGINT program. Or maybe they aren't because there are websites that enable anyone to easily view transactions.

>no fees (even in exchanging, if you do it right)

I'd love to hear more about this. How can you buy bitcoin online without fees? Meeting with someone and buying them in person kinda defeats the purpose, you could go out and buy the items you want with cash - there are no fees for that either. And is the effort really worth the small transaction fees? Not to mention that by the time you get back home from cash-purchase the price may have gone down and you can't even buy the item you wanted now.

>I don't have to give my CC # to the vendor.

That one is true.

Also, when paying with bitcoin you (in most cases) don't have absolutely any customer protection.