Eric Harvey of Pitchfork wrote an absolutely fantastic article about the social history of the Mp3. I highly recommend that everyone read it. At least if you are interested in the implications of Mp3's on music culture.
http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/ ... f-the-mp3/
Regardless, I for one won't really care when the CD dies. I think Mp3's and digital music in general has so pervaded music culture that you'd miss them far more than the CD if they disappeared. Because of the Mp3, bands without money or a label can upload their music to places like Myspace, or onto their own personal website and gain an audience they could never of 20 years ago. I imagine that the Mp3 has largely contributed to the popularity of indie bands among music listeners. Previously, the only places you could hear new music was on the radio or television. In both cases, airplay was largely dictated by the amount of money thrown at promoting the band. In short, the Mp3 has decentralized music. The only thing I'll miss if digital music continues to grow is the disappearance of record stores but even then, people have been lamenting that since the arrival of the cassette tape. Just remember record labels hated the idea of "mix tapes." After that, the CD-R was the new enemy. The Mp3 is simply the pinnacle of music sharing. The logical extension of what the mix tape brought us.
As for iTunes, yes it sucks for burning CD-R's. Just remember burning CD-R's was never its intended purpose. iTunes simply offers a place to buy music, listen to it, and transfer songs to an iPod. Dare I say, it does it far better than any other system in terms of functionality and ease of use.