is Myki the be all and end all for public transport

so...
Melbourne gets a new ticketing system in 2008 called myki [sounds like my key]. For the 1/2 billion $ the govt has allocated to this project just in set up costs, which are probably likely to increase before the poroject is delivered, I'm sure you could have almost made the entire public transport network free for the same cost.
Why are people using public transport held to ransom ?
I have a funny feeling that takeup will be slow - because its stored vale, it means that you have to treat it like a credit card. Unfortunately people don't currently store their public transport tickets in a safe way.
Also, if you choose not to register your card, if you lose it the credit is gone.
Thirdly, a system will calculate your best fare for the day. Wonder what kind of dispute process they will have if you disagree with what the system calculated the charge as, how will you know what day you used it, where you went etc. Why can't people continue to buy the tickets that they want to buy and if its cheaper to use another type of ticket then do so, if its more expensive then give them the option to not travel.
Me - I'll keep using the paper system thank you, until the bugs have been worked out.