I would disagree with that statement. Bitcoin is what the community has made it. The idea of bitcoin may be impossible to fully implement as intended in the real world, and how it is perceived will be how it's defined.
But in any case, you and I both agree that the problems are worth solving, or at least for me, there's profit in solving them.
I think this is often - and regrettably - overlooked. Regardless of Satoshi's and the devs vision for Bitcoins, how it is perceived in the real world will define what function it serves and the extent to which it's adopted. The protocol itself may be neutral but users are not and it's not going to make the transition from being a fringe commodity to a legitimate digital currency without a concerted effort to make that happen.
That said, I think it's easy to forget that from a development perspective Bitcoin is a long term project. It's in no way critical to the core purpose of the project that people start using Bitcoin as a currency this year, next year, or five years from now - what matters is that people use it in
some way between now and when the final block is mined.