said by Kilroy 
:The only purpose served by masking the password is to reduce the over the shoulder loss of passwords. My experience has been that it isn't needed. Now, if clear text passwords became the norm would that situation change? Unknown.
I have to agree that it is an issue on mobile devices. I have a Blackberry with the multiple letters per key and entering any password is painful.
For the most part I'd like to see my passwords as I type them, but it doesn't really matter since masked passwords are what I'm used to working with.
Isn't that why some forms require to re-enter the password to be sure they match? 
