Segwit needs 95% approval from miners(never going to happen) and only solves blocksize issues short term.
Segwit solves it long term because it enables for proper Lightning Network usage, which is the only way to scale to mainstream levels.
Lightning would take at-least 4-5 years to get activated. Also, it's an off-chain solution not on-chain solution which Satoshi advocated for. This means value spilling over from BTC into other more transact-able alternative currencies.
I disagree with you. Bitcoin has always been a leader and so will be for a long time. It is higher than alternative coins. And the difficulties that he is now experiencing - it's just temporary