Back in the day it was not unheard of for people to run full peer node (bitcoind or BitcoinQT.) In fact it was probably more common than not. I don't recall if MultiBit and other SPV stuff was out or not. Electrum was around as another option.
Yes, more hardware requirement==more centralisation. But if the devs don't forget to implement the optimizations part of the plans (i.e. "The Future Looks Bright" in
https://blog.bitcoinfoundation.org/a-scalability-roadmap/) then everyone can run a full peer node in the future just as easy as now.