And during that time you could mine 10 BTC in a few hours with a single CPU thread, and have them confirmed in an hour. BTC would be dead at launch in today's environment (as CAT pretty much proves).

The next retarget will NEVER be reached by the current wallet users. CAT is dead until it's forked, because it currently can't be mined, traded, spent, bought, or given away, or anything else you do with a currency.