It's almost as if Satoshi knew that specialized hardware and data centers would be created to mine bitcoin, told everyone about it, and it wasn't at all a surprise to anyone that this happened.

Bitcoin is decentralized, moreso than any other currency, and right now is best used as a digital store of value. That's a good start. Using it as currency is also possible, but clearly we're going through some growing pains, as the current explosive influx of users and interest was unforeseen.