The Freeview situation is likely to change, unless you live in the South-West, Wales, or Cumbria, because there will be changes over the coming few years to increase the signal strengths of the digital channels once the set of existing analogue channels have been switched off for good.
Overall people should have a wider choice on Freeview, and there should also be a dramatic (80+%) reduction in total power consumed for the transmitters. There may be small amounts of power (under 5W per box) added up but it is likely to be relatively small additional consumption if people leave Freeview boxes on Standby (as intended, so they can get updates etc).
As for the switch of national stations to DAB, I quite agree, there appears to be little or no need. I'm "on the fence" to some extent, as I certainly want the option of being able to hear additional stations via DAB (eg BBC R1 Xtra, 6 Music, and Radio 7) while I deplore the implementation (too poor a quality for audio compared with FM) and choice of DAB (if we are to bother changing, we should go to DAB+).
The 'FM Band' would not be empty, because part of the proposal is to allow more local stations on FM, in much the same way as now, where 'restricted service' licences are issued for a few weeks at a time.
I have around a dozen FM radios (when you include an old 'ghetto blaster' and several mobile phones, chosen specifically as they included FM radio), and do see there being a massive problem if people feel they are useless. As things stand, to encourage a switch, I'd say that a rethink is needed for mobile phones especially, as we could use the existing set of cell phone masts to give local transmission of the national radio stations, and while mobile phone coverage isn't 100%, I expect there are plenty of places where it may be better than DAB is (or ever will be).
You cannot just argue without taking some technical aspects into consideration - one of the present 'problems' is financial - the duplication of broadcasting on FM plus DAB is costly and wasteful in energy terms, which I think is part of the reason for suggesting a switch, plus the increased use of the internet for audio streaming (which indeed could be used with some mobile phones, though there would need to be some improvements to allow streaming to be reliable if it was to ever compete with FM for use in a mobile / portable situation, such as driving / walking to the shops).
We must not forget that this was not one of the Bills put forward by the present government, and as far as I can tell, there must have been limited input from the general public (simply because there are so many who feel this is going in the wrong direction).
Also, and not covered previously in this thread, but worth bearing in mind, is that suggestions it will be "forced on us" is somewhat incorrect - it will only happen after there has reached a "critical mass" of people using digital services, at which point the Government can then say "OK, the public has shown it is using digital services to an extent this is worth switching".
So all we need to do, time and again, is to make sure we require any equipment to have FM, and not be forced into choosing items with DAB in them. I see the BBC being used to try to "pressure" change (by tempting people with stations only available via digital services), alongside commercial stations playing 'switch to digital' adverts for free, while they have limited money from 'real' advertisers - switching off some FM services will save stations money, and even some of them are foolish to believe the hype... that DAB would bring them "opportunities" (in a Ferrengi-style "make you lots of cash" type way).
The Digital Britain report stated there would be extra features using DAB - yes, they can display scrolling text messages so it may be possible to have competitions and premium rate numbers shown while music is being played, but I'm far from convinced listeners will be too keen on wasting cash - especially as radio is often used in parallel with other things - while driving, while busy indoors on chores, etc - and not as an "activity" all by itself, in most cases. It's one thing to curl up with a book, or watching TV, but if I was listening to radio, it might be a prelude to sleep, or a gentle 'wake up' - I wouldn't be using it to participate in some prize draw as well...