"99% (including Chinese day-traders, blah, blah, blah)" DON'T MATTER - only the MINERS matter in defining the Bitcoin protocol - and the miners DO know that changing the protocol at the whim of of anyone who promised to buy a lot would render the coin valueless.
Well, it seems that we have very different views about the motivations and ideologies of miners and other players. I don't know how we could resolve this difference, so let's leave it at that.
However, note that a large fraction of the miners are Chinese; that the Chinese may not have much trust in bitcoin as the currency of the internet; and that miners, more than any other bitcoiners, cannot plan much beyond a 2-year horizon, because their equipment quickly becomes uncompetitive due to improvements in the energy efficiency.