I think people are SEVERELY overestimating the utility of perfect memory (74% yes, 10% no), and underestimating the value of traumatic and unpleasant experiences fading over time. Some people currently have perfect memory, it is not a good experience.

A better selective memory is a good thing. Electing to remember where you placed your keys or the name of your mailman is a good idea. Having perfect memory of all the idiotic things you said or did during your first break up or that fight with your mom, or more importantly that time you were molested or almost died in combat is a recipe for emotional disaster and severe PTSD. Its very hard to control where your mind dwells and how memories are triggered, but slow fade and nostalgic filters protect us from the worst emotional damage of long-term rumination over negative events.

In addition to good memories, every angry word, every mistake, every disappointment, every shock and every moment of pain goes unforgotten. Time heals no wounds for Price. "I don't look back at the past with any distance. It's more like experiencing everything over and over again, and those memories trigger exactly the same emotions in me. It's like an endless, chaotic film that can completely overpower me. And there's no stop button."

She's constantly bombarded with fragments of memories, exposed to an automatic and uncontrollable process that behaves like an infinite loop in a computer. Sometimes there are external triggers, like a certain smell, song or word. But often her memories return by themselves. Beautiful, horrific, important or banal scenes rush across her wildly chaotic "internal monitor," sometimes displacing the present. "All of this is incredibly exhausting," says Price.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-science-of-memory-an-infinite-loop-in-the-brain-a-591972.html