Don't worry, you haven't spoiled anything. I live in South Africa, I know exactly what most people can afford more than most people here.
The "most people" you refer to will use a web wallet or an SPV-style wallet, regardless of the disk space they can afford. Full nodes for Bitcoin (and in future for Monero) are only run by crypto enthusiasts or companies who have a vested interest in doing so...and both groups of people can and do own sufficient storage space even at this very moment to soak up a 110gb blockchain.
To your last point, currently the only other way to provide cryptographically untraceable and unlinkable transactions is ZeroCash, which has been discussed at length and has drawbacks of its own (eg. the accumulator creation event trust issue). All the other methods that exist add layers of obfuscation, but do not provide cryptographically untraceable and unlinkable transactions.
Oh then you understand the issues in areas where people are poor. You must realize that not all of them are able to use web wallets (not enough knowledge related to technology overall. Would you be able to provide an objective opinion between Monero and Darksend+ (even though you're a developer there), if you have followed the development on this side too? (new update - Evan posted recently that the release is a few days away). Theoretically the transactions aren't untraceable and unlinkable, but they do add a lot more anonymity compared to the likes of Bitcoin.