Is that why it is effectively backed by fiat? Or why the only community to really embrace it is absolutely plagued by scams and baffling incompetence?
It's new, give it some time will you? Bitcoin will be around for longer than banks have, in some form or another. You presume to pass judgment based on its first coupla years of history? Nonsense. This is how new things always work, they attract the incompetent/scummy first. How do you think the West looked in 1860? Full of intelligent, well spoken competent blacksmiths and whatnot?
Back to the initial point, isn't part of the entire mythos of bitcoin getting away from federal regulation and banks? If you are just going to have your bitcoins processed through a bank that then converts them to fiat money, you are just taking a worthless middle step.
A larger part of the Bitcoin mythos is diversity and universality. Some people wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole, exactly for the reasons you're quoting. Some others would be very happy to hear about it, as you've seen so far in this very thread. There's nothing wrong with this after all, diversity is both a good thing and the unavoidable result of non-centralization.
(And if you're curious to see further discussion of this political divide, maybe check out
The Politics of Bitcoin.)