Checked luggage is lost luggage, in my experience. I think I've only checked maybe two or three bags in the past 20 years (after two lost-luggage incidents prompted me to switch to a carry-on-only packing regimen), and then only because I needed to transport liquids in excess of the in-cabin allowance.

I also like to leave the airport after my plane arrives, not stand around a conveyor belt for some unguessable amount of time.

But I get your frustration; I'm the kind of person who barely breaks stride out of the aisle and into my row as I sling my bag up into the bin. It makes me want to scream when someone is standing there in the aisle for 30+ seconds, holding up the boarding process.

Then again, the airlines are to blame as well, most of them having terribly inefficient boarding processes.

"Put it in the hold" is a decent argument for point-to-point flights, or when you do gate checking. Otherwise it's a crap-shoot whether your stuff makes it (which can end a two-day business trip before it begins), what shape it will be in, and how long you'll have to wait. As soon as you have a connection, all bets are off.

How long you'll have to wait is mostly a function not of the airline, but of the arrival airport and the competence of the handling company.

The airlines deserve no money above the price of a ticket. The way i see it the hold comes free with the rest of the plane. I see no reason why i need to pay another 40 pounds to bring a case, so i will shamelessly abuse my allowance. (if it was a reasonable amount like a tenner, that would be a different story, as it stands it's a cash grab)

It’s nice that $10 is trivial to you but it isn’t to everyone. Being cheap and being poor are different.

Don't they charge you even more to check a bag?

I saw the baggage dance bit before a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt (from Seattle) in October, and before the connecting flight to Sarajevo.