The current price of bitcoin is based largely on expectations of future growth. Choke off that growth and I suspect a large portion of its current valuation will evaporate.
Doesn't that imply that the priority is maintaining bitcoin as a payment system? Or rather, that the only way towards "future growth" is with low fees/fast confirms? It seems that the digital gold crowd doesn't necessarily see things that way. I, for one, don't see the payment protocol as the primary value; it is wholly secondary to that of decentralized store of value.