The ecosystem is so complex now that playing out the game theory is beyond my ability. You could be right wrt miners and their purchased hashrate. I don't have a good feel for it.

That's the beautiful thing about SN, you can find this kind of discussion. You have to look and curate it somehow, but at least it's there!

Consensus is almost certainly too much to ask for, but how amazing would it be to have a bunch of detailed writeups, w/ code, simulation results, etc? From what I believe about human nature, these wouldn't persuade anybody, or reduce the idiocy, but once the shit hit the fat, having these well-fleshed-out ideas, complete with code and some data and concrete artifacts, would be a huge boon.

I think future bitcoin development, esp when its under duress, is likely to be a complete garbage-can model, and knowing that should allow us to prepare (and, eventually, react) sensibly.