Of the entirity of the aiport-experience, getting onto the plane is usually not that bad. Waiting for a couple of hours to even get to the door of the aircraft remains a pain.
A little bit of common sense from the passengers would go a long way though; Take the stuff that you need for the entire flight and keep it with you, outside of your bag (for me, this is a couple of bottles of water and my headphones). Put non-essentials into the deepest part of the bag, and keep potential-essentials (books, newspaper, etc) into the most accessible part of your luggage. Then work out where you're sat (window, aisle, etc) and coordinate with your peers so that you get into your seats in the order that they were intended!
It's an absolute breeze.
Though I do believe they could change the pattern you board in (window outwards) you would still need a suitable way of controlling access. Otherwise people would still try and just board whenever they wanted. A ticket controlled turnstile and a shoe-shop style 'ticket number' display would probably sort that out

My favoured way of doing long haul though.... Buy a Zombie cocktail at the bar (rum, rum, rum, orange, pineapple, lemon, lime, triple sec, rum) and then always ask for doubles when I am offered drinks in-flight. They do give them to you, and you can sometimes get 4 spirits at once. Eventually you forget the people around you!
