I suppose that all depends on the definition of "success".
My definition of success is perhaps modest to some, but it is still far away:
Bitcoin being the protocol and the coin of the internet realm.
If it achieves this, it could well become much more, but this is the success for which it is designed.
Knowing your way of thinking, yes; it is a modest target for something that incorporates so many different things in just one package. Maybe the "beginning of success" would've been more appropriate.
It merely scratches the surface of the capabilities, but achieving only this satisfies the Whitepaper and thus remains my criteria for success.
As a guiding principle for the project, doing anything that reduces this potential in order to achieve something other than this, would be against the spirit of Bitcoin.
Thus, those efforts could/should be a different project, or would otherwise naturally follow from the success of this one goal, which remains a long way off.