Personally I hated "bits", and I still hate it now. It is overused in technology already with terms like "megabits per second" and so forth, and I don't see how "bits" of Bitcoin is any less confusing than it is already. If we are to have denominations to make Bitcoin easier to understand I think we can do better than that. "Bits" is just lazy. Is it helpful for new buyers to buy 1000 Bits? They thought they were buying Bitcoin, not Bits. Now new people are not assaulted by one confusing enough term, but two. Again I have to ask how is this any more helpful to new users?
__
I do agree however that the 8 decimal number is unfortunate, and obviously the choice from an engineering perspective than a user perspective. I do not believe Bitcoin will ever be "mainstream" as a day to day spending currency for several reasons (as it is a settlement protocol), but we can still do something about that horrible decimal and make buying Bitcoin make you feel like you are actually getting something even if you spend $1.
If it has to be anything, I would propose we make 100 Satoshi = 1 Bitcoin. We make Bitcoin a denomination of what is otherwise a nasty decimal instead of adding more confusing terms to the mix. It is just a matter of moving the decimal on wallets and websites which is just a simple code change to display it this way. Buyers don't want to buy Bits, they want to buy Bitcoin. So why not cater to this.
If we used 100 Satoshi, that would be about 2600 Bitcoins = $1 with today's price. Due to the fluctuations in market price there won't be any denomination that syncs up well all of the time, but at least we can deal with full integers with a max of 2 decimals instead of trying to wrap our minds around 8 decimals. The computer underneath doesn't care, 1 Bitcoin to us would be .0000100 to the network. A "1.00000000" on the network would be displayed as 1,000,000 Bitcoins (100 Million Satoshi divided by 100). $380 = 1 Million BTC? I think that sounds pretty awesome, instead of $380 for one of something. Under this system my fraction of a coin suddenly makes me feel like a rich man.
Just my 2 Satoshi anyway