Sounds like you really should be making a point that Dwolla needs to build confidence and adoption. If Dwolla could become or partner with a net bank that has FDIC deposit insurance, I would think that would seriously blow up their adoption rate. I haven't given it a good look recently, but that would make me feel more comfortable with using it; especially if they also partnered with a behemoth like Amazon or Google for payments. They need to make a marketing push as a way to screw Visa, MasterCard, Banks, etc and it's ability to push down prices through lower processing fees.
Well, my credit card doesn't require topping up, it requires paying off every month. And my bank account/debit card gets a direct deposit of my wages- I don't have to top it up.
If a lot of places used Dwolla it would make sense to stick $1,000 in my account. But as it is right now, I would be leaving a lot of money in an account I barely use.
Dwolla is a benefit to merchants. Under $10 no fee over $10 .25 (see how long this lasts of course). Presumably the merchant because they are saving money will offer an incentive to the buyer to make the trouble worth it, at least in theory.
I don't know what the answer is- clearly they want to avoid making a bank transfer for every purchase (which is understandable) but the user experience just seems kind of lacking to me. Last time I checked they did have an automatic option, but it cost users $3 a month. Eh.