changes should not be made willy nilly to bitcoin's protocol, and merely for the sake of change when $7billion is directly at stake, and there seems to be around $20billion invested around bitcoin (maybe some of that is also shared by alt coin investments). http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/05/24/cryptocurrency-market-bitcoin-worth-19-48-billion-2016/
If only the VCs would have bought directly into bitcoin instead of cashburning
I think that is true on their personal level; however, it certainly is better for us bitcoin holders to have a lot of development around this space (even when a lot of the development turns out to be much less profitable than if the investors had bought the coins themselves). On the other hand, I believe that there are a certain number of venture capitalists who are doing both... they buy coins and they invest in bitcoin infrastructure.. and some of them may even believe that their investment into BTC's infrastructure preserves the value of their coins (because if they don't do it, then maybe no one else will do it either - tragedy of the commons, no?)