1. mempool: 57000 0conf-Statoshi, 11000 Tradeblock
2. avg wait time for 0confs=45-60 min Chain.so
3. Mycelium no longer able to prioritize fees
4. continued complaints on Reddit of stuck tx's even with higher fees.
5. continuous stream of full blocks and functioning full nodes indicative that the capacity for bigger blocks exists today.
6. TPS able to spike to >100 when needed indicative of greater bandwidth than initially thought.
7. continued lack of wallet development for fee feedback.
8. full blocks creating new deviant behavior.
Each of these is neutral reality to deal with, or great things that we should be thankful for. Mostly the latter. I'll defer on enumerating a reason for each at the moment.
What I will say is that when a toilet is getting clogged one can usually tell that something is up before the problem finally comes to a head and water threatens to overflow with turds and toilet paper and the like floating inches away from the rim. At that point one breaks out the plunger and gives the the thing a few good plunges. The obstruction cleared, the water, shit, soggy shit-stained toilet paper, vanishes never to be seen again.
This happy solution works when the pipes are in good shape but the system was simply not designed for certain kinds of abuse. A more significant (but still solvable) problem exists when there are infrastructure failures. Happily Bitcoin has very clear pipes (complements of the simplicity and 1MB setting) and simply needs a quick fix to a problem brought about by kids playing around and not using the system appropriately. The solution is to give the kids a slap on the ass, a talking to, and something else to play with. The distributed crypto-currency ecosystem has evolved to where both of these remedial activities are easily accomplished.