I think you should learn a bit into Chinese language and characters to understand how indispensable the characters really is. Consider English example of "bat", "bet", "bad", "bed", which are voiced very similarly. If spoken by non-native speakers with heavy accent, these words may be confused with "pat", "pet", or "pad". (Even in English, some accent-heavy people pronounce "pen" and "pin" identically!) A Chinese analog would disambiguate with "baseball bat" instead of just "bat" and so on. The problem is that such situation is much worse in Chinese than in English and it occurs even in daily use. This is why that most words are represented by two characters. Note that the pairing does not introduce new characters and thereby not adding to the "grinding". It's just adding new complexity to the language. Reading newspapers would require only about 4,000 characters (out of about 100K total) with about 300 tone-syllable combinations, giving about 13 of each left for disambiguation. Knowing about 2K is enough for daily conversation. Mind you these are still common use, including in formal signs or speeches. This is NOT uncommon as you've claimed.

Also, in Chinese, using more refined characters would show your erudition, politeness, or even social status. Politeness can mean everything for Chinese. So, you see, language isn't restricted for informational purposes only. It can also convey mood, politeness, formality, etc.

Note that new words are formed by juxtaposing two or more characters in an unusual way. With each character giving its individual meaning, the people could guess the meaning of the new word. If the people are deprived of the character and, say, have to read the pinyin, the meaning wouldn't be as obvious. Example: Xi3 yi1 = laundry becomes xi3 yi1 ji1 = washing machine. If the people don't know the characters, the meaning of xiyiji isn't immediately obvious. This fact makes Chinese language very intuitive and even facilitates learning. Children in China cope with this complexity pretty well. Their literacy rate is 97% in 2010.

The barrier of entry is as much as East Asian people learning English. Chinese and English are two completely different languages. For East Asian people, such barrier isn't as much, akin to the barrier of entry for learning French for English-speaking people.

Therefore, Chinese characters are indispensable.

Yes. C++ (and Java) are indispensable for scientific software. In scientific software, the spec is ever changing as the science progresses and hence the flexibility to morph the programs as needed and maintainability are of paramount importance. On the other hand, we need the speed.

Some of these can be resolved by invoking ready-made C libraries and then called in higher level languages such as Python or R or Matlab. However, in many occasions, this luxury isn't available (e.g., Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations or custom EM algorithm).

If you look at the wiki URL I cited, you'll immediately notice the problem. Chinese language IS a very terse and highly economical language with many symbols, sounds, and tones. In speech, people *disambiguate* words by pairing the words with "word-complements" (I don't know what they're called) to achieve the intended meaning. HOWEVER, the pairings are limited to daily use. Even then, there are still ambiguities. Take, for example, the word "shishi" in Pinyin. You get 23 matches. Even if you add tones, you STILL have ambiguities. If you look at the word list, they're not rare, right? If I say (in Pinyin) "shi4shi4 nan2 liao4", what does it mean? Is it "affairs of the world are hard to guess"? Or "everything is hard to guess"? Or "the state of the affair is hard to guess"? Or "affair of this world is hard to abandon"? In this situation, people disambiguate even further by putting in more "word-complements". Note that the phrase is a common complaint! It is so context specific.

Also, languages are NOT limited to spoken language. How about poems? Stories? Formalities? Jokes? Puns? If the words are written, especially in poems or terse narrative, they can be paired in almost every way and can create a very very powerful poem or narrative. Or puns! Oh man! There are so many puns based on this very fact.

Now, can you say that Chinese character is dispensable again?

I stand corrected, but no need to be inflammatory.

You seem to look at Chinese words from Japanese perspective. Correction:
1. Chinese characters are logogram.
2. Classical Chinese is mainly monosyllabic, while Modern Chinese is mainly disyllabic for disambiguation purposes. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_Den
3. Chinese characters *are* indispensable. Pinyin or other romanization techniques (plus tones) simply cannot convey the same meaning as the original characters, though you can guess. Remember that Chinese language is tonal and tones for one character can change depending on the other word(s) it is paired with. Even with the tonality marks, there are still ambiguities remain in the romanized version of the words. The same problems occur in other "simplification" or "phonetic abugidas" (e.g., bopomofo). Tonality does not exist in Japanese. See the wiki URL above.
4. Since Chinese characters are indispensable, you have to sight-read them. Yes, some phonetic clues do show up, but not always lead you to the right one. Also, there are false friends, alternative spelling (even worse in Japanese), and one dot or one slash difference may make dramatic differences in sound.

Why can't these scientists just take the samples and redo the experiments *the right way* (and defend it) to see whether it is indeed a methodological error? If it is a methodological error, the result will go away. Why whining?

Actually, an easy fix would be getting the sample from the said lake OR from the scientists themselves, and then redo the experiment to see whether they can reproduce the result. Why whining, right?

Follow up study on this topic (triclosan in toothpaste) in 2005:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16208383

Points still stand.

Triclosan covered toothbrushes? At one time science showed that triclosan reduces plaque. And what causes plaque in the first place? Bacteria! Don't put the blame solely on marketing. Be informed!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2638181