The best example that pinyin is awful for chinesse:

《施氏食狮史》 石室诗士施氏，嗜狮，誓食十狮。 氏时时适市视狮。 十时，适十狮适市。 是时，适施氏适市。 氏视是十狮，恃矢势，使是十狮逝世。 氏拾是十狮尸，适石室。 石室湿，氏使侍拭石室。 石室拭，氏始试食是十狮。 食时，始识是十狮尸，实十石狮尸。 试释是事。

In pinyin is:

« Shī Shì shí shī shǐ » Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī. Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī. Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì. Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì. Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì. Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì. Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì. Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī. Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī. Shì shì shì shì.

>There are about 10-30 homophones for each pinyin "word".

Yep, example

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yīn#Mandarin

And each of those characters might, itself, have multiple meanings.

Pinyin is phonetic right? So if I say this word in a sentence in Chinese, people have to figure out which one it is out of the 30 possible meanings?

As parent mentions, there are things that pinyin doesn't encode, such as temporal spacing.

Even in English we tend to opt for spelling homophones different. Witch and which, for example.

Imagine if I asked you to read English words in this way. I segment the words into individual syllables, and show you one at a time. You read each one aloud, and then (very quickly) I show you the next one. So you're constantly reading the phonemes. At the same time, you try to listen to yourself and turn the sounds into meaning.

That's kind of what it's like for me to read pinyin. Pinyin is great for learning pronunciation, but not great for getting meaning: it's just too slow.

Okay, so pinyin 2.0, with enough expressiveness to properly record spoken Chinese. Would that work better than the current pictorial system? (From an adoption standpoint.)