Is the end of the lap child near?

It's a question any new parent bringing an infant on an airplane faces: Do you purchase a seat for your baby or let her sit on your lap?
Current government regulation says children under age 2 are the only people who can fly without being buckled up. Babies can fly for free by sitting on an adult's lap.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has long recommended buying a seat and securing a child in a car seat or a CARES harness, and now the N.T.S.B. has released a statement saying this recommendation should be changed to a requirement.
The N.T.S.B. "concludes that children under the age of 2 years should be afforded the same level of protection as all other persons aboard air carrier airplanes."
If a plane encounters turbulence or crashes, unrestrained children are obviously at higher risk for injury and death than those who are restrained. Yet how often does a plane crash or encounter dangerous turbulence? Not often. And data specifically looking at how many unrestrained children have been injured inflight over the years is unavailable--though anecdotal evidence and available records show that it's very rare.
As a result, most parents--up to 85 percent--opt to carry their babies on their laps, mainly because that's what they would end up doing anyway. Cuddling and nursing an infant tends to minimize crying. Plus, the savings on a ticket are huge.
My two children traveled many times as lap children when they were under 2. There was a wedding in Mexico. A funeral in the Northwest. A trip to France. We saved hundreds in airline tickets. In fact, many families specifically plan trips before their kids turn 2 to take advantage of the free ride.
But it's hard for a parent to feel entirely comfortable with this choice: While parents are safely buckled up, their babies are not.
A lot of the time, parents traveling with lap children still bring car seats onto the plane in hopes of getting placed next to an empty seat. When our children were under 2, my husband and I often asked the ticket agent to seat us next to an open seat--and our request was typically honored.
We'd lug the car seat onto the plane and my husband would then ask for the seat belt extension so he could get the car seat properly installed--but then my daughter would never even sit in the safety seat. I'd hold my daughter in my lap because she was happiest nursing.
The FAA has long argued against requiring parents to buy plane seats for infants. They say parents unable to afford tickets for their young children will opt to drive rather than fly, resulting in more highway fatalities.

What do you think? Should children under 2 be restrained on plane flights? What have you done when flying with an infant?