Most of Runes will obviously die, and buying them now would absolutely be a very stupid financial decision. BUT, from a viewpoint of a user who wants to do his/her shitcoinery exclusively in Bitcoin, Runes might unlock a very LARGE amount of capital in the system - if they do it right. Bitcoin DeFi could be as big as Ethereum DeFi in my opinion.

There are builders that are bringing smart contract programmability on-chain, https://www.arch.network/

Plus for "wasting" our precious Bitcoins on huge fees, listen to OP. Plebs like us don't have enough capital for on-chain shitcoinery in Bitcoin. BUT for those users who decide to pay for huge fees, they are technically not wasted. They pay the miners to secure the network and to continue mining new Bitcoins to distribute in the system.