There is one consideration that makes the title of GM special, even for chess players who have never seen a tournament, much less played in one.

The title, GM, makes selling books so much easier.  So the current crop of players have strong financial incentives to make getting the title easier.  But a GM is not a Ph.D.  A professional chess player who puts in his time and writes a dissertation is just a professional chess player and perhaps an author.  (I think it was Steinbeck who said "A person who writes a book has written a book.  A person who writes two books is an author.") 

The title is separate from the quality of the analysis, especially in the current age of computer analysis.  Even now, two of the best chess authors of our time are "only" International Masters:  John Watson and Mark Dvoretsky.

The title of Grandmaster should be reserved for the very best competitors regardless of their literary talents.  Nietzsche (the avatar, not the dead philosopher, or God) stated that the title should denote a world champion candidate level of player.  Realistically, that would limit the title to about five players at any given time.   

That's going a bit too far in my opinion.  But the successful candidate for GM should be a household name among avid chess fans.  The 2600 elo barrier accomplishes that.  It will need to be revised in the future, but it's a great start.

I have to disagree completely with Smyslov_fan and Nietsche - the point is that the title IS exceptionally hard to get - dont try telling me that its easy! And the title of GM still means something today - it is recognition that you are at the top level of your profession. Now the fact that there are more GM's these days than in the days of Max Euwe is neither here nor there - we are in a different era, but to say that to get to be a GM these days we should have to play at the level of Anand or Topalov Kramnik is just madness - these are the very top players in the world - maybe what you are looking for is another title? Oh wait we already have it "Super GM". Dont make the rest of us have to be super GM´s too  

Smyslov_fan - there is a fatal flaw in your argument - what about all the GM's already would you strip them of their title?? If not then the system is a mockery because 95% of GM´s would not be able to get a GM title on the basis of Mark Crowther´s suggestion 

Actually, I'd have to agree with Mark on this one.
I think the title of Grandmaster really ought to be harder than it is to achieve.
Obviously, its still hard now... but surely we can agree that 2550 doesn't put you in the same class as Alekhine, Capablanca, etc.
The title was originally meant to denote the very top of the chess world.  A mere handful of players who were Champion-class.

I've often felt the title was becoming more and more diluted as the rating continue to inflate.

I think maybe the tile should be based on world ranking instead.
Why not give the title only to those players who achieve top 50 status (or top 100)?
That way if everyone in the top 50 becomes 2800, you will need to work that much harder.  The bar would automatically raise whenever ratings rose (as they are wont to do).

Actually, I think it would make a lot of sense to just create an official title that means "top 10 player".  Perhaps an official "Super-GM", although that name still sounds a bit silly to me. Perhaps, "World Class" or "WC"...although this might confuse people who think it means World Champion.  But I think we can clear that up.   

Basically, I don't think we need 200 GMs in the world with more and more coming every month.
It is hard now, but not nearly as hard as it was 50 years ago or even 25 years ago.

And isn't it odd that there can be nearly 300 elo points between the very top GMs and garden variety GMs and yet both have the same title??  No other title has such a huge range. 

In keeping with the original intent of the title "Grandmaster", I feel that only players who are viable candidates to the World Championship ought to get the title.   But I'd settle at least for top 50 at this point and perhaps a seperate class for top 10.

What do you all think? 
Insane?  Daft?   

Maybe just have new titles...

2600 Super GM   
2700 Super Duper GM 
2800 Super Diddly Uper GM
2900 Living Computer
3000 God