I've noticed when dialing a number out of caller ID on my Vonage setup, I don't need to preface the call with the 1 either, and I'm in an area with an overlay area code (847/224), so on a conventional land-line, 1+10 digit dialing is required.

However, I do enough business e-mail with folks overseas that in my e-mail signature, my phone/fax are given as +1 (847) xxx-xxxx (the + being the generally-accepted representation for whatever your international access dialing prefix is, like 011 in the US, 0011 in Australia, etc.). Also, I program all US numbers in my cellphone as +1xxxxxxxxxx so that if I'm traveling and pop in another SIM, I don't need to monkey with dial strings.

...

But, to the OP's point(s), even a lot of the toll-free numbers are just gated into automated voice response systems, which are really just voice interfaces to some portion of the internet. If I'm driving to the airport, I can't fire up my laptop and check my flight's status. I can hit the voice-dial button on my phone, say "United", have it call their number, and an automated system will give me scheduled departure and gate info for my flight. No people besides me were involved. Even if I'm sitting at the airport, if I can't see a departure monitor from my chair, I may be lazy enough to pull out my cellphone again to check the information.

The problem that I think you're complaining about with respect to ticketing award travel isn't necessarily a lack of technology - it's too much complex technology that can't inter-communicate. If you're back in Germany and want to book a Star Alliance round-the-world award, it may have travel on Lufthansa, but it'll also have segments on other carriers. Their reservations systems may not play nicely with each other. If it's enough of a problem, it could even be more cost-effective to have a human make the award booking for you than to spend a couple million bucks to have a consulting company write software that'll make every system talk to each other nicely.