During the Blocksize Wars, two distinct factions emerged, represented by equally distinct chains.
Wrong. There was never a chainsplit or even a community split. Majority have so far always been on the singular chain which is called Bitcoin.
Everything else including bcash are copies of Bitcoin and there are lots of them (BCH, BSV, BTG, BTS, ...) in fact during 2017 there were at least 20 different copies created just like bcash.
At first glance, it seems that the first faction, Bitcoin, has chosen the long-term path—one where the base layer cannot scale and must ossify to remain secure and decentralized.
Wrong. Bitcoin (which is not a "faction") increased the on-chain capacity back in 2017 with the soft-fork known as SegWit.
Meanwhile, the second faction, Bitcoin Cash,
Again bcash is not a "faction" it is one out of a dozen copies created from Bitcoin which has nothing to do with it. It's just a centralized shitcoin with a mutable chain that has nothing to do with Bitcoin.
has opted for a shorter route—a path where the base layer can scale and adapt more easily, allowing immediate use by all users
Wrong.
You scale your altcoin based on demand and this altcoin has no demand as it is clear from its empty blocks. So it did not scale anything, it just has bigger block size cap that is left unreached.
Currently, on-chain transactions with Bitcoin are still feasible for moderate amounts, but they are prohibitive for smaller sums.
Similar to 2017, Bitcoin is under a spam attack that has created a congestion and triggered the mechanism that automatically battles spam attacks which is the fee market.
Bitcoin Cash scales, and I have my private keys; I don’t need to trust anyone.
You do have to trust the centralized authority that controls this centralized altcoin and can for example perform a 51% attack anytime they want to reverse transactions.
Maybe I should be asking this in the technical discussion board, and was actually thinking of starting a topic just the other day but since it's being discussed here..one thing I've always been confused about is the testnets. I've been told that a testnet is just like an actual chain in "real-time" being utilized, but then others have told me it's not. If a testnet was truly the same thing, then these kind of coversations/debates would be over right? Since you could then just easily test and prove what works/what doesn't.. but, I'm certainly not an expert..