I don't see any usability problem for a token usage of encryption already for a few years. Only problem is with real usage of encryption, and that necessitates third parties / intermediaries to be unable to decrypt.
I'm not sure whether this is what you mean, but I think you may be missing the point with your talk about "real encryption". It is not necessary that no third parties can decrypt your data or messages in order to have encryption be useful. Security is not about absolutes. In almost all real-life security scenarios, there are requirements that you allow certain vulnerabilities, and that you trust some people.
For example, you can say, "With GPG, I don't have to trust anyone. I encrypt a message, and then the only person who can read it is the recipient."
But that's not strictly true. First, you're still trusting the recipient. That recipient could decrypt your message and make it public. Technology doesn't help you there. Additionally, you're trusting the recipient's security. If that recipient has malware that snoops on communications or grabs their private keys, the message can be decrypted. If that recipient has an untrustworthy spouse with access to the recipient's computers and passwords, then your information isn't completely safe.
Beyond that, you're trusting the makers of GPG. You're trusting that they know what they're doing-- that when they say their encryption can't be broken, they're right about that. You're also trusting that those people are not malicious themselves, and haven't left any backdoors available. You might argue that people can audit the code, but then you're just trusting the auditors. Even if you audit the code yourself, you're trusting your own understanding, which relies on the accuracy of your education on the topic.
So I'm getting kind of picky here, but the point is, if you understand security, then you understand that there is no situation without trust and vulnerability. The trick is to understand your vulnerabilities, and to be careful in choosing who to trust.
So if, in order to protect yourself from the data loss that would result in losing your keys, you choose to trust some other third party, that is not necessarily bad security. The trick would be in making sure you understood the vulnerabilities it exposed, and to choose the right people to trust. I'd rather trust Google to secure my email then I would trust the internet in general not to read my unsecured email.