I find it strange that blockstream hold up Visa as the holy grail in terms of transaction throughput and the need for Bitcoin to adopt sidechains so they can reach these levels.

So many lines or worthless FUD and yet still not one fucking clue about what sidechains are about.
So sidechains are not about facilitating a greater number of transactions? Do explain. You sound like you are getting frustrated.
No, for the 1000th million times, sidechains are not about scaling Bitcoin.
They're about augmenting its features and capabilities.
Never have I seen sidechains be proposed as an actual solution to scaling Bitcoin so I'm not certain how that holds true.
If my understanding is correct the proofs used in their concept to move coins between chains are in fact competing with transactions for space in blocks so it makes absolutely no sense to propose they profit from undue advantage by restricting block growth.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68655.msg12170746#msg12170746Austin Hill, chief instigator at Blockstream, respectfully disagrees with you.....
But, there are several problems with bitcoin, too, says Hill, which is why exchanges like Coinbase generally run their own transactions outside the block chain.
Hill told CoinDesk: "There is a practical reason why some of those things can't operate on the block chain, and that's because at peak, they're doing more transactions than bitcoin can support right now."
Instead, Back and Hill want to 'shard' the block chain, creating another block chain, which has a two-way relationship with bitcoin's own.
This will have two major benefits, Hill suggests: functionality, and scalability.
Firstly, "We could have US and Canadian dollars, smart derivatives, option shares, and future contracts. A whole series of programmable trust instruments. A lot of people had talked about these things, and how the block chain could be adapted for this, but I hadn't seen anyone lay out how it would come to pass."
And secondly: "By sharding, you can have orders of magnitude faster transaction processing and you can start to scale bitcoin."
sourceSeriously, did you just quote your own opinion to back up your statement???