This is a very good point- consider all of the friction points that make self-checkout slow and cumbersome. How many of them apply to manned checkouts?

The weight thing is absolutely the most frustrating, and I would put money that it's not an effective theft deterrent.

I don't know if it's intentional, but the places around me seem to have largely solved the problem of cashiers being faster, by putting the slowest people on earth as cashiers...

I've never seen a clothing store using RFID tags before but that's quite interesting technology. I've just done some reading up on it and I hope more places start using it it seems convenient and something I'd like to see adopted on a large scale.

If it always has issues it makes sense you wouldn't like it, where I use it there are rarely any errors and there are usually regular cashiers still if you don't want to self checkout, personally I'd rather scan my groceries than have someone else do it. I do agree it would be much better if they had an RFID system like you mention though.

Most grocery stores I’ve been to in the U.S. have regular self checkout and express checkout 10 items or fewer.