Some guys I went to school with have started a company trying to solve this problem. It involves having your package delivered to a glorified electronic mailbox in your area. The courier delivers it to the box; you get an email with a pin code for retrieving your parcel. http://corporate.bufferbox.com/
Such a system has been deployed countrywide in Germany, by the former national post office. It's really, really useful, especially since you can even send off packages from there.
