but I could potentially see a TaPoS layer one day added upon it to enhance security and confirmation speed. Discussing the possibility of convincing miners and vested interests from switching completely away from PoW or changing the 21 million limit appears to be an effort in futility.
I'd think something like a sidechain, where 10,000 bitcoins are burned to create a million "new" coins, then y'all can play in PoS paradise and gradually use the value of the coin to buy more and more bitcoins into the PoS system. Then when you've got all the bitcoins, you can turn PoW off.
Sidechain or not. No need for burning bitcoins, as someone could simply create a TaPoS blockchain that mirrored and synced the distribution of BTC and than have a wallet acknowledge both blockchains but have the TaPoS layer hidden where only BTC is used and the TaPoS layer acts to add another form of security that could have 1-30 second confirmation times in addition to PoW 10 min confirmation times.
I.E... pay for a cup of Coffee the confirmations start rolling in this way:
TaPoS 1 second confirmation, TaPoS 3 second confirmation, TaPoS 5 second confirmation, TaPoS 10 second confirmation, TaPoS 30 second confirmation, TaPoS 1 min confirmation, TaPoS 3min confirmation, TaPoS 5 min confirmation,TaPoS 7min confirmation, PoW Bitcoin 1st confirmation ~10min, TaPoS 13min confirmation, ect...
This would allow you to have instant confirmations and better security because now you are trusting full nodes and miners and you could detect a PoW 51% attack if the TaPoS confirmations weren't confirming while the PoW confirmations were.
You wouldn't even need a softfork or hardfork to accomplish this, just a TapoS blockchain and a wallet that acknowledged it.