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On the merits/issues of simplified and traditional Chinese characters
The New York Times took on this often heated topic for debate recently. The experts comments provide the initial fodder, but it is the hundreds of comments that prove the most interesting and enlightening. And though complete conversion to a romanized based language is bravely (ignorantly?) proposed by a few, many posters note that reading traditional Chinese characters is easier because they contain more meaning, but writing them (by hand) is more difficult. And not surprisingly, whichever system you learned tends to be the one you prefer, especially for native Chinese speakers. For non-native speakers, those who learned their Chinese in China tend to prefer simplified, whereas those who learned Chinese in Taiwan or Hong Kong or even in the U.S. tend to embrace either, but with a greater appreciation of the history and richness of the traditional characters. I am certainly of a similar mind.
I highly recommend checking out the debate and even chiming in if you so move to do so:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/chinese-language-ever-evolving/
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