I hope so. Its so annoying and there's no point for it.

region lock is here to stay unfortunately

Unless Nintendo starts using World Wide Release dates for all of their games more than likely. I never had a problem with Region locking but I can see how some people find it annoying. The only time where it effected me is when I considered importing Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney from Europe.

It just punches me in the brain that the original ds was not region locked yet the 3ds is.

They will forever. They aren't competent enough, to release games at the same time, to all English speaking countries. It's easier to just cause fans pain. Instead of doing their job faster. Just like Disney failing to release the remaining Marvel cartoons on DVD. Even though europe has all of them.

I hope so, whoever thought it was a good idea was fucking stupid. It screws people over, I'll be moving out of my country to another in a couple years and so that means my 3DS will be useless there...
It requires me to either: 1. Re-buy the games I had before so I can also buy new games without having to carry around 2 3DSs when I buy a 3DS there
2. Buy another 3DS but realize I cant play a decent amount of my library due to it being only playable on my other 3DS
3. Import (which can be annoying)

I won't buy a Wii U for a couple years because of its region locking and may not even buy one at all due to such a stupid policy. If their next handheld/console is region locked, I'm not going to buy either :p

Is not PAL - NTSC enough to discourage people from importing to consoles? Anyway between Europe and Japan/USA.

No. People region mod systems all the time and bypass that. I have a modded BD player that plays my imported PAL DVD's. Companies don't want to just release things in certain places, because they have a slow shi*y team. Or stupid rights issues that make no sense. Take Discovery channel. They stopped giving US fans the full 50 min versions of Mythbusters (Aussie company owns MB so they produce the show for no or less comerical markets) episodes on DVD. But PAL countries get them. So I buy the PAL sets.

Region locking does suck and hopefully, Nintendo doesn't use it again next gen but honestly, they probably will.

I remember some time ago, someone said to Reggie that they wanted to import a game from Japan to play on their American 3DS but couldn't and he said something along the lines of "we're very sorry" in a sympathetic way, which suggests that most people at Nintendo don't want region locking, but the suits at Nintendo Japan make the decision.