Jury service in the 21st century

I have completed my jury service and I have to say I am immensely happy about the way it has ended. I was not even called upon to give a verdict. On what would have been the second day of deliberation, the trial was dismissed by the judge as apparently new evidence had emerged. There will be a new trial and thus all jurors were discharged even before their two obligatory weeks of service - ten working days -  were over.
I am glad at this turn of events not merely because I am back to my normal life, as far away as possible from courts - I was never drawn to the legal profession, unlike other members of my family, and the court environment definitely does not appeal to me at all.  I am glad because I have serious reservations about the jury trial system and felt very uncomfortable being involved.
I had never served as a juror before and was never implicated  myself in a criminal case, thus I never really gave much thought to the jury system as a whole, until I was summoned, that is. I was not keen on doing it but I reckoned I should get it out of the way and so while everyone else was enjoying the amazing summer we are having, going to parks, perhaps swimming and soaking up the sun, there I was cooped up in a court room which mercifully was air conditioned - I also noticed that because of the heat, judge and barristers dispensed with their wigs. I did not serve at the Old Bailey and that was already a good thing, the trial  could have lasted weeks, the Old Bailey is famous for trying the most notorious criminals!
 I have now had enough experience of jury service to be able to say that as it is in place  in the UK, and in this day and age, it is totally unnecessary, a remnant of the past which should be reformed, if not abolished altogether.
Jurors, believe it or not, are not given any training whatsoever, apart from being shown a video and being constantly told that they must not research the case when sitting on a trial and whatever they hear , as also their deliberations, is secret.  They are asked to use their common sense when reaching their decision but they do not have to give reasons for it, which is frankly absurd.
Trials with jury are very expensive and cost taxpayers a huge amount of money because they are held at Crown Courts, not the cheapest of courts.  But  jurors do not get paid, which is really bad, especially for self employed people. It is an important point because when you think about the amount of money the legal teams  involved in a trial and all the other legal personnel are paid, it seems greatly unfair that jurors should receive no compensation, especially since jurors are the people entrusted to  give the verdict (I am also not very keen on the legal aid system as it is either, a lot of taxpayers money is being wasted on it, but I shall discuss this in another post).
Unbelievably, jurors are not required to have any educational qualification, so you often find jury panels with lovely people who are however not very articulate and frankly unable to grasp not just the legal arguments , which are very complex and which the judge always patiently explains in plain English when summing up, but also what it is that they are called upon to do as jurors. People that rather than look at the evidence start speculating about circumstances which are irrelevant. Or people who insist on asking the judge all sorts of questions which by their nature reveal their poor grasp of the matter at hand as in the now (in)famous Vicky Price case.  Or people that do not quite understand that defence counsels are paid to do their job and discuss a defence strategy with their client - they are there to get an acquittal, just as the Prosecution is there to get a conviction.
Defendants and witnesses lie, being under oath is no guarantee. Or they may recall events differently. You have to be able to follow the cross-examining attentively  and need to sift through the evidence very carefully  or you might miss vital clues. So it might help jurors to have access to recordings of the trial while deliberating to review important statements as they were given.
My main contention is that jurors should be properly trained, the way magistrates are. It should be a voluntary position, not a duty, jurors should apply to do jury service, rather than being summoned at random from the electoral register and a legal professional, such as a judge, should sit with the jury and help the jury reach their verdict as they indeed do in other countries, such as France and Italy. Reasons should be given for the verdict, it totally beats me that this is not a requirement, because frankly the way things are we might as well draw lots.
I am including here a video of Professor John Spencer in which he discusses why juries should be reformed, at the very least.

I would like to insert here one of the comments left under that video, it truly resonates...(typos in the original have been corrected)
"Everything that this man has said is so true.... in the United States as well. Unfortunately, many people don't see this because they rarely have the opportunity to experience the justice system first hand. I've tried over 300 criminal jury trials, and with every additional trial that I have in front of a jury, I become more and more convinced that the jury system is fatally flawed (for many of the reasons stated in this video). I recently tried a case involving the amazing work of a police dog. I am convinced beyond any doubt whatsoever that the police dog was more intelligent than any of the 12 jurors individually, and it is more likely than not that the dog's intelligent quotient was higher than the  sum of all 12 jurors combined. I challenge anyone to go to your local Walmart at midnight and pick 12 people at random. That is typically the quality of any given jury which one will see in the vast majority of criminal jury trials"

I rest my case.