I don't know how he didn't expect that. Isn't it designed in the system such that you can calculate the maximum transactions being handled?

I've seen some people blame the miners for the fees.. but when you have such a massive backlog, the variable fees are the only way it's even working at all right now. If not for that, it would be a lottery whose transactions actually got through.

I also have been a bit confused by the usability of BTC for ordinary people, due to the units of measurement. The fractional nature of BTC and cryptocurrency seems like it would not fit the necessary ease of use for most non-digital, day-to-day transactions. I think ordinary people would find it hard to buy bread if it cost 0.000127 BTC ($1.99 USD), for example.

I think things would start being priced using different units. With your example of bread costing 0.000127 BTC, that could also be written as 127 "bits" or μBTC. It would take a lot of getting used to, but it really isn't any more complicated than $1.99.

Only the centralized exchanges at that.