auto-increment field : in a simple way

CREATE TABLE tablename (   colname SERIAL
);

For more granular control over the size of field, I need to do the following---

CREATE SEQUENCE user_id_seq;

CREATE TABLE user (

    user_id smallint NOT NULL DEFAULT nextval('user_id_seq')

);
ALTER SEQUENCE user_id_seq OWNED BY user.user_id;



I am not pinpointing MySQL v/s Postgres; but since I am accustomed to using simply "AUTOINCREMENT" in MySQL,
I find this a bit cumbersome procedure.

1] Is there any simpler way of doing this?

2] Whether the development team has this point in their TO DO list for future release of postgres?

Thanks,

Vineet