It's interesting that we both thought on compression. But I don't think that it can make that much of a difference...
And yes, I agree that the size can scare the users. But on the other hand those who need 1h for sync at each start don't matter that much for decentralization, right? The users we need would keep their nodes running closer to 24/7...
It will but whether it is worth it for the additional strain on CPU is a whole other question.
Actually every little bit helps. I personally don't think Bitcoin benefits substantially from having nodes within datacenters because that creates some centralization within the network as the node operators don't really have any control over it. I run a node within a datacenter because I have other uses for the server as well and I'm using the node for analytics. I would prefer for a network that comprises of regular users running nodes (albeit sporadically) than to have them distributed around the DCs.
Realistically, most users don't want to spend so much just for running a node. Bootstrapping on Raspberry Pi takes a week or so, and assuming the HDD doesn't crash. That is about how much most users would spend to run a node. It is terribly slow but there really isn't a choice.
On-chain capacity probably will have to be increased some point in the future. So it will become an issue sooner or later, provided that we don't do anything about it. Moore's law is more or less done for in the near future anyways.