UG - PlayStation Plus

I want to take a look at the new Plus offering from the PlayStation Network. For years I have heard Sony fan boys rip on Xbox gamers for having to pay for Microsoft's online service. In the next gen console race, I owned an Xbox first (I am on my third one due to RRoD) and didn't get my PS3 until later. At first, I wasn't a big fan of the annual fee I had to pay, but once I got my PS3 and I saw how much better the online Xbox experience was, I was glad to pay it. If PlayStation wants to start charging for a service, then they should really make that service better. Here are a couple of examples of the features on Xbox that Sony should focus on first before charging me for access to betas.

1. Game invites and game joins. For Xbox, I can invite players through the game I am playing, they will see a pop-up asking them to play, they hit their Xbox button on the controller, and choose accept or decline. Done. With Sony, I have to send an email and that user has to check their email and then decide to join. This is really as advanced as they can make it??

2. Outside game chat. Xbox allows me to have multiple chat rooms so that my friends and I can have an outside the game chat even while we are playing a game together. This is great when there are just two or three of us playing CoD online and we don't want to listen to the other morons that we get stuck with or have them hear our conversation. I have yet to be in a game with gamers I don't know and have any meaningful conversation take place. I know people are supposed to talk strategy, but all I end up with is some prepubescent dolt singing some teeny bopper song, or macho men arguing about the realism of how a gun fires, or someone with a crying baby in the background, or some other distracting, worthless crap. At least, in a chat with my friends we can actually hear each other and talk strategy or make fun of each other and call each other offensive names.

PSN wants me to pay for free DLC and free PSN games (how is it free if I pay them an annual fee) and frequent discounts (I'm paying for discounts??). Sweet fancy moses, what a deal - hell I will pay for it twice. Why don't they add some real useful features (like the ones mentioned above or something else good...like hookers) and then charge for it.