You are slow man, it really took you a looong time to understand. No offense intended, but the enormous potential of BTC was like the third thing (after decentralized + trustless) that got my attention. That happened like in the first 10 minutes of reading about it
Better late than never, huh?
Nothing like $900 BTC values to open ones eyes. 
Truth is, I didn't really know enough at that time to grasp it all. I had no idea about our monetary system, I had no idea why decentralized even mattered so, it really became a battle against ideology and not the tech. As I've learned Ripple, I've learned more about the whole crypto-space. I've learned tons about our failing global monetary system, what the bills in my wallet really are and the list goes on. From that I realize that this is all really important. Whether it will be Bitcoin or something like it, the truth is we have to do something.
The straw for me was I watched a video of Erik Voorhees talking about Bitcoin and during a Q&A at the end, I come to find that he's a Democrat, not a Libertarian. Now I'm not a Democrat but it really changed my perspective on the whole Bitcoin thing. Without the political crap, Bitcoin is much more appealing to me. Probably shouldn't have judged all of Bitcoin, on a handful of random forum avatars.
Oh well, I was at least smart enough to keep some BTC close at hand, just in case I was wrong. 