I see your point, but..
Honestly not trying to be condescending: Have you ever used a password-protected iWhatever? It's pretty easy. Slide, enter numeric unlock code, you're in. There's no verification delay or anything. You can set a sizable code if you want. You can also define what happens after too many wrong guesses.
Once you're in, there's arguably no need to enter credentials in each app. The phone is secured any time it's locked. The paranoid may disagree, though.
The fingerprint scanner is a cool idea, and I think it was the Atrix that had one.. Didn't work out very well, from what I hear. The accuracy was such that you could pick from having to scan multiple times before it would successfully unlock, to the other extreme where anyone's finger-like appendage could unlock it. I don't know if that's just a limitation of today's affordable scanners, or just a poor implementation.
