I think we should definitely have PPBM, and bags should be x-rayed.
I'm with NoStressHere on the personal bag search though. It takes a few minutes to inspect one piece of luggage. It will then take a few minutes to repack that luggage. The way I pack, there is no extra space, i.e. repacking would be a good 20 minute operation. That would be way too much of a delay.
I wouldn't mind paying an extra couple bucks per ticket if the money would were to be spent on buying machines to scan checked baggage.
See also:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005570.html
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