Doesn't matter what I think, and as you said "people who understand the value of bitcoin". Newbies don't understand shit, but, they do understand metrics like market cap, so it will hurt bitcoin. If bitcoin is not number one on the shitty marketcap metric that will hurt bitcoin adoption plain and simple.
What do the advertisers say? "you don't need a good product, just good marketing"
In that case, bitcoin was fucked from day one. 21 million coins for the entire world economy was never going to work. Most world citizens (>99%) have never had $8750 at one time in their lives. They will never buy bitcoin at that price. They will buy Ripple for $1 instead.
EDIT: Yes, I know they are divisible but the average idiot can't comprehend that.