I think a bigger or at least equivalent concern is that a centralized mining cartel can simply veto or slow the progress of any new changes, no matter how beneficial or competitive they might be to other FinTech.  Or that Todd and company are only willing to push changes that the mining cartel signals that they agree with ahead of time.

I think that this could already be the case. I don't think that Satoshi ever envisioned core developers colluding with miners per se, correct me if I am wrong here.

We will only know if this arrangement truly exists or not, only if/when the core developers ever push a change that miners are not in complete agreement with.

Only time will tell I guess...