One important thing to remember...and this might help you understand the airline's point of view...is that on your flight there will be several business travelers paying probably 5-8x what you paid for your ticket. These people are the airline's bread and buter. They generally have short notice schedules, need lots of flexibility, and are in a situation such that their time is worth extra fees to enable them to return to work/families/whatever at as fast as possible.

If people could change names on tickets, a company based in, say, Austin with a large account in, say, Denver then they could just purchase 4 tickets a day at $69 each way and change names for whatever person was traveling to/from that client. Instead, and because of this rule, the consultancy is forced to purchase flexible tickets for Joe to fly Moday - Thursday and Mary to fly Tuesday - Friday at $499 each way.