A single hash is still a good idea since otherwise anyone who steals the password database can log in as any user. Sure if someone can steal the password datab

A single hash is still a good idea since otherwise anyone who steals the password database can log in as any user. Sure if someone can steal the password database they may be able to steal passwords as users log in, but that is at least harder. To make sure users have secure passwords, the server can just generate them and tell the client what their password is. It is, as far as I can tell, entirely a historical accident that this is not how it is generally done. For web sites, I'm fairly sure this could be done via browser password storage without the user needing to ever see the password if they only use one system to log in (or browser sync between all systems they use). IMO, 21 character random base-64 passwords are good, enough security and still possible to memorize (three groups of seven) over a couple of weeks if necessary.