For the sake of the argument, I am going to ignore that changing the mining algorithm is probably the hardest thing to change in bitcoin (maybe even harder than to change the 21m hard cap):

I don't think ASIC resistance helps against centralization. It only makes it harder to be efficient for everyone. If there are enough profits to be made mining something, entities with the most capital will buy as much hardware as possible. Doesn't matter how much energy is literally wasted because it can't be made more efficient due to its ASIC resistance. All ASICs do is to increase efficiency. Being able to mine with consumer hardware does not mean that plebs have more capital to deploy.