Do the merits outweigh the demerits? Would a less volatile nature draw more usage?
You can answer the question yourself, just go and check the bitcoin price since chart 2010, that is enough to answer your question.
Not only that, you can also check the fist 10 assets of the world in market value. That is also enough to answer your question that bitcoin volatile helps.
But what that helped is bitcoin limited supply and increasing demand.
It's a double-edged sword and we shouldn't consider volatility as something completely whit or black, more like a gray area, imo, for everybody.