What is the point of PoW mining when only a central pool can confirm transactions?  The point of PoW is to decentralize confirmation of transactions through blocks.

If only one authority has control over confirmation (in this case the official pool) then why bother mining at all?  Blocks could just be validated by having the developer sign each block with his private key, and the block chain would be "secured" without requiring any hashing at all.

The only reason you require people to send hashing power to your pool is because you need something to steal.