If there is anything that working in the technology industry has taught me it's that successful technologies are rarely without huge design flaws or weaknesses. In fact, those flaws and weakness often foster an eco-system of early adopters and businesses that develop to services and products to "fix" things and this in itself has a powerful viral/network effect. For example, look at the Bitcoin services offered to merchants.
Don't get me wrong Bitcoin's future is far from certain and has a high chance of failure, but don't under-estimate the ingenuity of people to work around the problems we see today, especially when motivated by sizeable financial opportunities that simply don't exist in the alternatives right now.
I totally agree. I initially had some apprehensions about bitcoin because of it's potential flaws and the endless possibilities for creating new currencies. But, the community around bitcoin has significant investments into it, and any flaws with real threats to bitcoins existence will be addressed quickly by all the miners and developers who have a vested interest.
Anyone creating an alternative currency will have their own vested interest. If it's the government, it will work in favor for the government. If it's a business or individual, it will work in favor for them. So what motive does anyone have to adopt them vs bitcoin?
If it's someone truly altruistic who just wants to make the world's fairest alt. coin, he will have a hard time finding supporters and in particular evangelists where there is nothing in it for them.