Traditionally when you went to hotels or car rental, you had a reservation but no ticket. I like to have paper tickets to be able to move quickly around airports and change flights, but if you lost it, it was a major pain. You don't have to worry about losing an e-ticket.
I think they should really drop the change fee through the end of the year, or really reduce it to something low like $25. Let's say you got a relatively cheap ticket. With $100 on top of it, it's suddenly not much of a deal.