I use an add-on for Firefox called
Auto Copy that copies content when it's highlighted (or just selected). It can be toggled by a button in the status bar.
I think this idea can be extended across all the programs system-wide. That is, a system tray icon has to be present and when you click on it, Auto copying should be activated. So you can just select any information (text or graphics or charts or anything) w/ the mouse and it's ready to be pasted. The idea is to reduce one single step, ctrl+C.
Is there any program which lets me do this already?