Bitcoin was designed so that its code-defined parameters couldn't be redefined by users ("bottom up") and this is a feature. Imagine if gold could be redefined by holders of gold merely by their agreement. It would be the anti-gold: gold works as a store of value because its properties cannot be changed in a feasible manner (and certainly you cannot alter the gold of others no matter how much support your "ideas" have).
Bitcoin's "physical properties" are its code. When, like in the case of the blocksize cap, there is a general agreement that one of these "physical properties" of Bitcoin should be changed, it's important to understand the contradiction this entails to something that is intended to be money/store of value to introduce changes to it. Bitcoin is in this sense in a strong contradiction of being both still experimental software that requires changes, and that ideally it would need zero changes so the "physical properties" analogy of "digital gold" stands on its own.
The problem here is not one of ideologies, as largely (except Mike Hearn and an increasing number of mainstreamers, who are socialists and statists) the ideologies of bitcoiners are strongly for free market capitalism.
It's a problem of vision / understanding. Either see Bitcoin as a payment channel tool or as a distributed database, not money and not commodity, in which case obviously introducing major changes and revisions is a "software" thing. For this school of thought, destroying the underlying assumption that the main properties of Bitcoin cannot be changed is not a big deal. This kills Bitcoin as a store of value. I'd argue that some even want this to happen. This is why I'm not that surprised when you say that if people want, let them introduce inflation in Bitcoin and stuff like that. Or when you interchangeably talk about forks of the chain and forks of the code.
The block size limit like any other parameters of Bitcoin were set by either Satoshi or the devs after him. This is "2" as you said above, and this is the way Bitcoin as we know it. The market balance mechanisms were also set up by developers. You blow up the stability of these mechanisms and you have made Bitcoin utterly pointless. The very system is made so that users running arbitrary protocols just doesn't work for them. What you suggest by "1" is political money and it will never work. Why don't you just try it separately and leave the Bitcoin network alone?
To be honest I am shocked that you are even trying to defend a top down approach for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not the same as gold, it is better, we can sent it across the world with low cost and its fundamental properties can be changed unlike gold. Bitcoin is both a commodity and a currency, it is both a payment channel and a distributed database. It can do all of these things without compromising the fundamental principles of decentralization and freedom. These different capabilities of Bitcoin actually reinforce each other in a synergistic fashion. I think you are constructing a false dichotomy by saying that we must choose between these different features.
I think that Bitcoin should be governed through a bottom up approach since this is what most closely resembles the principles of decentralization and freedom. I also think that this is how Bitcoin was designed to function and how it technically functions today. This can be subverted purely through the culture and believe of its participants, it seems like you are now actually advocating such a believe by saying that individual users should not make these decisions for themselves independently.
At least it is clear now where you stand, you want their to be top down governance of Bitcoin, I want bottom up governance. These are fundamentally incompatible concepts. I advocate freedom of choice which could lead to a split when fundamental disagreements arise. You seem to be advocating totalitarianism, tyranny of the majority or even tyranny of a minority, since without using proof of work as a way to measure consensus, consensus will be whatever Core says it is. Their governance might be benign but I refuse to entrust the future of Bitcoin with such a small technocratic elite.
People can decide for themselves what kind of a Bitcoin they want and by extension what kind of a world they want. Even if you insist that people should not have this choice over the future of Bitcoin it does not change that people do have this freedom of choice. So everyone please choose wisely, consider the advantages of freedom.