My take on the automated check-in kiosks:

They work fine, but I too dislike the flimsy paper and I especially dislike having to stand there at the gate and pull out photo ID. Despite these drawbacks, if you're running late and need to show yourself "checked in" before somebody gives your seat away, this is the way to do it.

If one really wanted to do this in a high-tech fashion, the answer would be some sort of fingerprint/thumbprint technology so that when boarding you could simply touch a pad with the appropriate digit.