There was too much pro-optimism bias in that review and some inaccurate statements about the security benefits.
I was left with the feeling that AISICs are always fairly distributed among a wide group of people, and those people are well intended. That's not how things go. After a while mining at breakneck speeds moves to monopolistic mining. There was an admission that the evidence from Bitcoin has not been reviewed. Please do that review before pushing the positives and papering over the negatives.
Brute hashing power is defensive, but not if it's controlled by a few or the wrong few.
One of the issues raised about the bitcoin block size increase is that because of the Great Fire Wall of China, if you increase block sizes those outside of China will have greater orphans because bigger blocks can't get out of the firewall fast enough, meaning Chinese miners get more of the block rewards, which would lead to others going out of business and even more centralised mining in China, and in the hands of just a few miners.
ASICs in this instance paint you into a corner you can't get out of because one group has so much hashing power.
Just use a little self-regulation when looking at the positives of ASICs. Bitcoin is in crisis because of the downstream impact of ASICs.
First thing is that I never billed myself as an expert in the mining industry. I happened to be in the right place at the right time to do a site visit. I am simply reporting my observations. Several points you make are certainly valid. If I sounded like a cheerleader, then so be it. The X11 ASIC has escaped Pandora's box. There's no putting it back in. To quote Rafiki (The Lion King):
Buster (if I can speak for him) would love to have you on his show in order to give your opinion.