I had heard they were going to put in more check-in counters there...

As El-Al 1971 said, the airport was poorly sized when it came to check-in counter space. (Or perhaps more precisely, the check-in counters were overwhelmed by the security positions)

CO is gung-ho about kiosks.... I'm a bit surprised that they don't rely a bit more on kiosks to at least issue boarding passes, the IAA should put a line of common-use kiosks on the street-side of the check-in area, then people can get their BPs, go through the interview and then just drop their bags, this would reduce the counter space needed.

In addition, and I really wish they'd push on this... I was in HKG a year ago, and they have a train called Airport Express which has a couple of stops but goes directly from the city center to the airport. The major stops: Hong Kong and Kowloon have check-in counters for the airport, they have agents and you can check your bags. If they could manage to do even half of that for Haifa, Tel Aviv (merkaz and azrieli), and Jerusalem when its ready, I think A) a lot more people would use the train, and B) they would relieve pressure on the airport.