Traffic shaping for p2p

I feel like p2p technology like bittorrent is a valuable way of sharing information, as well as allowing indie media developers/musicians/writers/artists in general distribute. I don't think companies like comcast have the best interest of it's users in mind when they use packet inspection and throttle back on p2p transfers. If there is a general bandwidth shortage problem, why don't they charge accordinly for internet access and use those profits to invest in more backbone infrastructure or newer faster transfer methods? Instead, there are companies who are deceptivley restricting bandwidth for customers who are paying for the services they use.

Also, does anyone know if you surf the web while running bittorrent or some other p2p application, does that cloud the ability of isp's to discern p2p traffic from "normal" web traffic?

I'm really curious.

Josh@Joshmills.net