Any thing that is computationally intensive can be mined faster on the GPU employing 1000s of hardware threads
A GPU is a relatively general purpose device, and with GPGPU on the horizon, is it really a problem? What is the fascination with CPU only? As long as ASICs remain specific and an algorithm is easy to change, ASICs can't have an advantage over GPU/GPGPUs because they can easily become obsolete. With this algo, it is trivial to change the hashing algorithm while keeping the verification simple and general purpose devices relevant.
The point of CPU-only is the millions mass your coin can gain in the market since anyone can download and get some coin. Mass leads to economic
network effects, which perhaps leads to competing against Bitcoin effectively, given Bitcoin only has 350,000 users.
I have programmed software all by myself which had a million downloads when the internet 10 times smaller.
Also the mining is in theory not cartelized. This is very important in my opinion. If the mining is controlled by a few entities, you no longer have a decentralized money and the government can then take over.
Changing algorithms is not practical for an established coin, because the existing peers may not accept the hard fork. So ASIC immune design needs to also be considered.