auto-increment field : in a simple way

[Vineet Deodhar <vineet.deodhar@xxxxxxxxx>]

I wish to know regarding auto-increment field.
I learn that the required table definition would be something like --

CREATE TABLE tablename (
    colname SERIAL
);

For more granular control over the size of field, I need to do the following---

CREATE SEQUENCE user_id_seq;
CREATE TABLE user (
    user_id smallint NOT NULL DEFAULT nextval('user_id_seq')
);
ALTER SEQUENCE user_id_seq OWNED BY user.user_id;


I am not pinpointing MySQL v/s Postgres; but since I am accustomed to using simply "AUTOINCREMENT" in MySQL,
I find this a bit cumbersome procedure.

1] Is there any simpler way of doing this?

2] Whether the development team has this point in their TO DO list for future release of postgres?

Thanks,

Vineet