Me! I sat on a plane for 20+ hours to get to Korea; I'm willing to sit on an elevator for 20+ hours to get into space.
Look, if we can perceive of technology capable of 200-300 mile high elevator, then why not look to develop technology similar to that from Star Trek--the transporter, or the shuttles--which could get a person from the ground to space in mere minutes?
Because transporters are still remote freaks of way-out-there quantum mechanics, and shuttles are what we're trying to move away from (remember Challenger & Columbia?).
The space elevator is NOT way-out-there sci-fi fantasy, it is a realistic idea. It's just basic well-understood physics (ok, orbital mechanics is kinda strange, but still just an extention of mechanical physics). The only thing really inhibiting construction is lack of strong enough materials, which recently-developed carbon nanotubes seem to be; it can be done, we just need to work out large-scale production.
There's a difference between imaginative stories and "we're working on that."
The first objection I can see is how any such device would interfer with airline travel, not to mention creating a really big target for would-be terrorists.
When I wrote about the shuttles, I was not talking about a vehicle that launches like a rocket. Why not design a VTOL vehicle that can acheive multiple-mach speeds, and take off and land on its own power, plus a serious cargo load. How is that any more outlandish than a 200-mile high elevator?