Not sure if you have noticed but the node count has actually increased over the last year, disproving your theories of node centralization.

Recording all transactions on a single ledger is part of what defines Bitcoin, it had its critics even when Satoshi was still around. Many of the people within Core do not believe in this original vision, the people behind Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin Unlimited still do. Bitcoin can scale, regardless of what you say, and if Bitcoin does not scale, what can I say but be prepared for Bitcoin to become the myspace of cryptocurrency. Since most of the alternative cryptocurrencies already have far greater transactional capacity compared to Bitcoin today.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=532.msg6306#msg6306