BTC hasn't been PoW decentralized since 2012 when ASICs took over
If you are basing on that, then you might as well say that Bitcoin has never been POW decentralized since it's inception because from the satoshi days, the founder would find himself mining alone or with a handful of other folks.
My question is, was the Bitcoin network decentralization those days much better than it is right now?
"...the Bitcoin network decentralization..." in those days, the days before ASIC mining at least had a chance to be better decentralization. ASICs robbed the crypto community of 1 CPU 1 Vote. Now it's 1 Corporation 1 Vote and really it's one step away from 1 Nation 1 Vote.
It is fair to link the corporate ASIC interest to BTC's broader success but at what cost? BTC would have been successful eventually anyways but getting there by way of sound fundamentals would have put it on a more sustainable path. Choose a reason: More egalitarian distribution, far less energy consumption, slower more manageable growth
The genie is out of the bottle but that doesn't stop developers from shelling out better designs. 20K cryptos and counting LFG!