Patent examiners don't have discretion. The special patent court (CAFC) is filled with patent lawyers that decide cases based on their own personal interest in a more expansive patent system. Except where the Supreme Court reviews their cases, they have total power to set precedents and those precedents always favor trolls over creators and innovators.
I've traded comments with those guys on reddit. They live in a completely different reality. And people said Steve Jobs had a "reality distortion field." He had nothing on those guys.
I'd have to do some search-fu in my reddit comment history. What I remember of it, is that the trolly-vagueness of patent claims is entirely necessary for the system to work as well as it does, and that the patent system is a well-honed machine essential to the proper functioning of our economy.
