I think I've heard all the arguments, but I still cannot understand the opposition to increasing the blocksize.
I don't have an (maybe I should say:
a valid) opinion on the block size debate. I would prefer to err on the side of decentralization, but at this point I'm not even sure what that is. I think magic numbers are a poor solution (but I'm sure they are sometimes necessary).
I'm not afraid of forks, like most people seem to be. I think that everyone should be prepared for how they will deal with possible forks in the future.
What I do know is that after spending a lot of time reading about Bitcoin for the past several years, and getting a feel for some of the people involved, I would prefer to stay far, far away from anything that is related to Mike Hearn. For the life of me, I can't even understand why someone like him is interested in Bitcoin (unless it's to change it into something else entirely). I'm thankful that he has barely touched Bitcoin Core.
So I oppose BitcoinXT, but not necessarily a block size increase.
Disclaimer: I use Mycelium for convenience from time to time and do not know whether or not that is based on any of Hearn's BitcoinJ.
there was a thread on Reddit yesterday devoted to trashing Hearn that provided the obvious links to his controversial proposals in the past. i was grateful for that as it allowed me to go back and review them. no surprise, i was very vocal against his suggestion to redlist addresses while him being on the foundation board. but then yesterday i read a little deeper and his "suggestion" to do that was in reaction to the Cryptolocker Bitcoin correlation that was prevalent at the time. at least his heart was in the right place altho redlisting is still a terrible idea for fungibility. i get that ppl think he is flippant about centralizing ideas and i would agree with that. but at the same time, he clearly wants Bitcoin to succeed; and in a BIG way. thus, i choose to look at him with a little bit more moderation than i have in the past. he is terribly smart and it should be clear his refusal to participate in BIP's over the last couple years has been in reaction to having to deal with ppl like gmax. i don't blame him.