15lb carryon limit is not that uncommon, much as it sucks. This is an interesting list, though dated -
Carry-On & Weight Baggage Limit Chart For 68 World Airlines - Flying With Fish - Flying With Fish. A possibly more up to date one -
http://www.farecompare.com/about/worldwide-baggage-fee-chart/ . They don't cover a lot of domestic/regional airlines and I suspect many of those have low limits too. Of course the real trick is to know which ones weigh things, how strict they actually are, what you can get away with for a "personal item" if they allow that too, and generally how to work the system - all info that can be hard to come by and changes with the phase of the moon and mood of the agents.
Interestingly Cebu Pacific in the Philippines has a 15lb limit, but actually says they don't want you to check cameras or electronics, and supposedly doesn't include their weight in the carryon allowance. Don't know if you could convince them 30 pounds of camera gear all counted as a camera if they questioned it, but my husband waltzed right through recently with his small 15# rollaboard, plus his much heavier camera backpack casually slug over his shoulder, both unweighed and unquestioned. My larger (typical US size) rollaboard was weighed once, but I had it at exactly15lb. When we were on Philippines Air a few years back, I don't recall that they explicitly said that about electronics, but when they weighed my (heavy) backpack they asked if it contained a laptop, then passed it along. On the other hand, I heard a story about someone who took their camera out of their overweight bag and handed it to someone in full sight of the agent, then promptly put it back in the bag after it was weighed, and that made it ok.
What is also a real pain is when you have an itinerary including airlines with very different baggage rules, such that you have to rejigger things along the way.
I've seen situations where one airline will follow the more generous rules of a partner on the same itinerary, but then sometimes not.
I imagine there are times when baggage rules actually discourage people from visiting a place. I know it won't totally stop me, but it could definitely sway a decision. It would be nice if government or tourism boards could put some pressure on airlines that make things unnecessarily difficult for visitors, especially if there's no practical alternative. (I know, dream on.)
My husband checked his camera in a hard case on Quantas - another with a 15lb limit. It made it fine, then was promptly damaged by a bell hop in Cairns.
