On gift cards:
1) They do seem to be a cop-out and lack consideration. Sometimes they're OK, as when you know someone wants a particular something from a particular store but it has to be tried on or is impractical to ship.
2) The old gift certificates were useful. You paid face value for them, and if the user didn't use them up in one go, they'd get store credit or (if the amount was very small) cash back. American Express Gift Checks (though they did have a fee) never expired. Some store gift cards work the same way. But those Visa and American Express gift _cards_ are just plain evil.
a) You pay a substantial fee to get them
b) They often charge a monthly "administrative fee" (that is, they decrease in value) after a short period of time.
c) To use them properly, you have to know how much is left on them. You can't just hand it to the merchant and say "here, finish this off and then put the rest on my other card". Rather, you must tell the merchant, "Here, charge 16.52 on this one and put the rest on this other card".
d) They don't work well when pre-authorizations are used, as at restaurants (where they may pre-authorize the meal plus an expected tip -- so the card may be declined even if you have enough to cover the meal and were tipping in cash)
If you don't need to mail them, US Treasury "Gift Certificates" (
http://www.moneyfactory.com), particularly in the $50 and $100 denominations, solve those problems.
As for this year, I'm already into it and probably other people have already bought me gifts. It would be additional torture to try to stop this year's exchange.