Coins And National Identity

I think coins would be more interesting if they drew attention to national acheivements and aspirations.
So, I welcome commemoratives.
My own country, Australia, has a bland coinage, that, apart from commemoratives, focusses on the national coat-of-arms, and our unique fauna. Our notes are much more interesting.
The latest British series does nothing for me: it seems that they had too many work-experience kiddies at the Mint.
Britannia and St George: what could possibly be more British than those two ?

Ideally, coins should all tell something about the country that issued them. This has been the goal, ever since ancient times when people first began to realize that coins could be advertisements, promoting the distinctive identity of a city or an empire to locals and visitors alike. But the truth is, people inside a country and steeped in their own national identity aren't very good at determining what things are truly distinctive and nationally symbolic.

In my opinion, the US coins that are most distinctively "American" are the quarter and the Ike dollar. Australia's "unique fauna" is very indicative of the country itself - people see a leaping kangaroo and think "Australia" - but I think most of the Australian coins (1c, 5c, 10c, 20c, $2) leave people scratching their heads. Australia's predecimal coins, designed by a Brit that had never actually been here, are more distinctively "Australian" - at least, they are more distinctive of the Australia of the 1930s - because they were designed by an outsider, George Kruger Gray. They were also part of an empire-wide coinage redesign by him, with coins from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Rhodesia and other dominions as well as Britain itself all receiving "distinctively national" coinage. For the most part, I think he did a pretty good job.