I'm happy to see someone ranting about this, I couldn't agree more.

This was solved years ago in the VoIP world by ENUM, but it didn't get enough traction because nobody can earn any money with it.

Here is how it works: your phone "number" would be sip:saghul@domain.tld and you'd have a legacy alias which is a regular phone number, for example: +40317105163. Then someone which knows my legacy number may use DNS to get my SIP URI and call me for free:

    dig NAPTR 3.6.1.5.0.1.7.1.3.0.4.e164.arpa
    ; ANSWER SECTION:
    3.6.1.5.0.1.7.1.3.0.4.e164.arpa. 3600 IN NAPTR  100 5 "U" "E2U+web:http" "!^.*$!http://ag-projects.com!" .
    3.6.1.5.0.1.7.1.3.0.4.e164.arpa. 10 IN  NAPTR   100 5 "U" "E2U+sip" "!^.*$!sip:saul@ag-projects.com!" .
    3.6.1.5.0.1.7.1.3.0.4.e164.arpa. 3600 IN NAPTR  100 5 "U" "E2U+web:http" "!^.*$!http://saghul.net!" .
    3.6.1.5.0.1.7.1.3.0.4.e164.arpa. 3600 IN NAPTR  100 5 "U" "E2U+loc:http" "!^.*$!http://bit.ly/d41V3X!" .

You can put several things in DNS, the above example (real one) contains 2 websites, a SIP URI and a URL with location information (a link to Google Maps).

There is an Android application called ENUMdroid which will do a ENUM query for each number you dial and it'll present a screen with it's findings: http://saghul.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/CAP2010021...

Apple allows you to use FaceTime and iMessage with email-style addresses, lets see if they can push the model forward :-)