Of course, when most people check in via the internet they'll have to re-introduce charges for priority boarding.
I always thought that one of the purposes of check-in was to keep tabs on who'd actually turned up at the airport. If so, the fact that you can be miles away and check in, then fail to make the "last call for flight XXX" and delay it because you're still in a traffic jam or in bed, should be considered a retrograde step. Perhaps they need to introduce a scanner where you can scan your home-printed boarding pass when you get past security (or even as part of the route through security, usually plenty of time to fight with an extra box while standing in the queue). From that it's not a million miles to having a machine attached that will print out baggage labels for you, so you can check in bags without needing staff at the desk to do it for you. (Although how many people are going to fail to properly secure the tags?)