http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl...Volitional

Seems complicated. not sure why I'd want to express volition in any case.

edit: ah, I see some common examples.. but most of these volitional forms I've never heard before.
http://www.reikialoha.com/raymond/learni...ese/verbs/

I'd expect to hear it a lot in Japan. When people are trying to decide on plans, or when someone is trying to figure out what's best to do in a situation, you can expect a lot of 「どうしようかな」s all over the place. That's the example I hear most, but I seem to hear it about a hundred times a day in one form or another (especially the copula だろう).

Volitional is used all the time, every single day here. If you think this is conjugation complicated...well, you have a very rough path ahead of you! (I still can't recognized verbs in passive, causative, or passive-causative when spoken to me--especially the slang crap.)

The basic "let's ..." usage is easy but they keep using the volitional form in cases where it doesn't seem to make much sense to use it. But it's just a question of getting used to it.

It's really common. It's used to mean things other than "let's..." as well.

しようとする to try to do
帰ろうと思っています I'm thinking of going home/ I think I'll go home
やっぱり買おうか I guess I should buy it after all?

You can just put a verb into Space ALC and a ton of sentence examples will come up(note: I wrote the ones above).

Tae Kim has an excellent explanation on the volitional forum used in situations such as coupled with とする and と思う. Check it out: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/try

cool site, thanks.