Different ways of phonetic transcription

Most high quality dictionaries, including allmost all pronunciation dictionaries and works intended for professional linguists, use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). This is the standard around the world, and can be applied to every single existent human language. However, to my and many other people's disappointment, many dictionaries choose to go for "simplified phonetics" instead of those of IPA. This is done because it is sometimes thought that it is easier to understand such simplified symbols, and partially this is true, of course. But indeed this makes it all confusing; when you go from one dictionary to another you will find that a different way of transcribing speech sounds is used! I cannot but state that this is the sad truth.

Forum: Audio: Speech and Pronunciation
Posted: May 5, 6:37 PM [GMT 1]
Post Subject: [url="/English/Post/clzlq/Post.htm#222733"]Unifying phonetic symbols[/url]
Post author: [url="/user/djwh/profile.htm"]EyeSeeYou[/url]

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I wonder why dictionaries and/or books on phonetics don't unify the symbols used for phonetics to avoid confusion. The symbol /a/ can also be found as /a: /, some books even equal /^/ to shwa!.

I'm only talking about AmE, since I understand I cannot expect AmE and BrE symbols to be all unified.