The OP is correct but missing one detail.

In a world where finance isn't regulated to death, you don't need Bitcoin. Just pick a bank and use it to convert commodities into whatever asset you need to pay with, or vice versa. Bitcoin's only real use is to combat red tape. Without this, it's easily beaten by many other systems, for example a payment processor plus gold exchanges.

That's not to say Bitcoin is a bad idea. It may or may not be a decent weapon against man-made idiocy; time will tell.