This is probably the right level of convenience for people who are already accustomed to navigating libraries: they know how to request, do ILL, check out the New Books shelves, game the local hold system, etc. It's probably not enough convenience to convince people who are equally read to buy as borrow to borrow instead of buy -- which seems very desirable in a variety of ways, now that I think about it.
Re: the workarounds suck