...
I think its safe to say non-mining nodes *never* had any power. In the white paper the word 'node' was synonymous with the word 'miner'. It's only over time that this 'node/miner' separation has arisen.
Bitcoin is defined by hashrate, and the arguments (from all sides, me included heh) that something else *should* matter seem a bit petulant! ...
Hate to agree, but ... That.
but ... that ... is just untrue; it reflects a deep and fundamental misunderstanding of what Bitcoin is. The design of the bitcoin system deeply constrains miners-- and doing so is precisely how it creates economic incentives to keep them honest in the other ways it needs them to be. Miners cannot mine except in conformance with the rules imposed by the users of the system: it's physically impossible for them to break them.