The biggest problem with jury duty is that the pool of people who can legitimately sit on a trial that will last more than 5 days is minuscule. Essentially, it's students on breaks from school, retired folks, civil service employees (who, for the most part, get paid for unlimited jury duty), (some) union workers, and the unemployed. Around here, the judges are VERY strict about the "financial hardship" excuse. I don't have any statistics, but I doubt there are many employers who will pay employees for more than 3-5 days of jury duty (and, of course, hourly employees don't get paid unless they work (union members excluded under some circumstances)). Judges will actually expect folks to exhaust their paid vacation time to sit on a jury. As a result, you get people who are desperately trying to get out of jury duty.
I've long been a proponent of professional jurors.