I disagree. Proof of Stake has not been formally proven to be robust to all attacks. When that happens the discussion becomes relevant.
The proof of work method bitcoin uses relies on sha256 hashing which has been investigated quite thoroughly.
That is the reason why bitcoin isn't obsolete yet, and it will take time till new trustworthy digital currencies emerge. It took couple of years for bitcoin to proove it's secure enough. I expect new currencies to prove themselves quicker because of the increased amount of attention that the entire subject is getting
Roughly speaking a protocol is merely an agreed upon way of communication. It is neutral in the sense that the protocol is well defined
and you are free to implement code that is compliant with the protocol.
The unit price has absolutely nothing to do with this. In a system where you want to exchange ownership of something you need
to actually create that something. Either you put it all in at the start or you add it. To stick with the protocol concept.
Altcoins that are forks of bitcoin are merely modifications of the protocol where these aspects were changed.
And here we can see the difference. The bitcoin source code could be defined as an protocol. A neutral piece of software that you can use to build different applications on. But bitcoin(tm) itself is a speficic brand of service, that is only based on the protocol. When unit price is involved then it doesn't resemble anything else that has been called a protocol in the field of information technology.
It's like someone creating the IMAP protocol, and at the same time creating an IMAP using e-mail service and calling the service itself "the IMAP protocol"
I'll go as far as saying it is impossible to create a system of wealth exchange without having an "unfair" distribution.
Every single altcoin has this exact problem. Look at the discussions on wealth distribution in nxt for instance.
I agree that there is no way that you can make a system that is 100% fair. But you can either have increased of decreased amount of fairness. The main thing to decrease the amount of fairness in the bitcoin system is the same old devil:
too fast deflation . This is what makes a very wide cap between adopters who have entered at different times. Most of the altcoins suffer the same problem. They also want to sell their coins and therefor they try to make them attractive to buyers. And the main option to use is a promise of increasing deflation and riches that come with that. What we would need is an currency that is attracting people by it's utility, not by it's speculative investment value.