It is important to realize that in cryptography, arguments by authority have no validity.
If only all pursuits were so noble.
I apologize for my terse tone. The fact is that this forum has thousands of users with more enthusiasm than understanding, and it can be overwhelming at times. I have only so much time in the day, and sadly I am not paid to post here (though I am paid to do cryptographic research). In fact I have been part of the bitcoin community for several years, and have been quite active in its research community for a good part of that.
I understand completely. I have many friends, some of whom I might call "empty suits" behind their back. To their face I challenge them to be more self-critical.
Consider this: if someone were to pay for help, they'd be smart to ask for the free help first. And they might then know whom to hire.
My low post count and short replies reflect this situation. To compensate I have been developing several articles to correct and explain common misconceptions, including the one that I posted for you, which as you noticed is not yet finished. I'm glad that you took the time to read it and I hope that it provided some perspective about the nature of Bitcoin-related work.
It is pretty interesting. Ironically, I drafted an essay on Altcoins to basically the same purpose but from a completely different perspective, a microeconomic or even psychological one. I talked all about how "money is a network" obviating the need for a second Internet-Dollar, why exactly the market prices would always be so connected / non-diversified, how the cost of time to research an altcoin produced a completely sunk cost making it better to just buy every new thing reguardless of its non-utility (if you were rich enough and feared competition), how early miners were rewarded with purchasing power and want to "do that again" hence introduction of Litecoin (even though in steady state mining on more expensive hardware would increase centralization).
Then I just gave up and said anyone who doesn't get this by now can just enjoy their own funeral.
If you'd like to learn more about modern cryptography, I encourage you to check out
Matthew Green's blog (as a starting point, read every single post and reference), as well as some classic papers such as "Probablistic Encryption" by Goldwasser and Micali.
Will do.