Maiden Names

How important is the last name of a person? It represents one on forms and documents. and is what you pass on to your children.  It seems a little too important to just say, oh women should take the last name of their husbands.  However, there does not seem to be a elegant solution present.  Men taking their wive's last names presents the same problem.  Hyphenating seems to be a balanced solution, but that gets old pretty quickly.  No one wants a last name with 4 (or even 8) different components in it.    Choosing a new last name after marriage solves these problems, but it estranges relatives and will make tracing ancestry even harder, and also is an odd choice.  I think that whatever the spouses wish should be whatever happens, and its just a matter of personal preference.