Did you see Vitalik's post on Reddit yesterday about his take on the democratization of Bitcoin vs. Ethereum? It was quite interesting - his point was that Satoshi might have done more harm than good by making Bitcoin very democratized, perhaps over-decentralized. Scattered, if you will.
Conversely, while I do agree with all you say about Ethereum, Vitalik's (semi-invisible) hand means that there's the ability to sorta kinda change the rules when they make sense to change. Within reason - see ETH v. ETC.
Appreciate the convo. Following you now...
It also creates a huge failure point, as we saw with the Vitalik death hoax.
Yeah, failure points are a problem...
...then again, like a Martha Stewart, where the person is the brand, the person can do lots to make sure that the brand can continue without them.
That's a good point, and one of the fundamental strengths of decentralization is the whole Hydra effect - cut off one head and two more grow to replace it.