I'm just trying to gauge people's confidence level after the SHIT year we have had in 2014 (lol at 2014 = "the year of bitcoin")... a lot of people have lost confidence, and I would even say that the general reputation of bitcoin is still negative thanks to Mt Gox.
2014 definitely *is* the year of bitcoin. Much more positive developments have already happened in this year than in all the previous years combined! And getting rid of MtGox was one of the positive things that happened.
As for the price, which is depressed now, yeah right, 2014 is not (yet) the year of a huge bitcoin rally, so what? Still is an awesome year with three more months to go.
I think price matters more than you make it sound. It gives people confidence to buy and/or invest, it puts bitcoin in a positive light and it makes corporations more willing to work with it. When people look at bitcoin right now, the first thing they say is "isn't it that currency that lost over 70% of its value?" You may be one of those people who can say "i don't care about price, I got in at $1 so I'm still up hehe" but let's think about other people too. They care about their money and they won't get involved with something that will make them lose money.
And I can argue that the MtGox fiasco put a shadow on pretty much all positive developments that happened all year. We've had some big merchant adoption this year, sure, and the PayPal news recently is about the best thing to happen this year. But in 2013 we went form not knowing whether the US gov will ban bitcoin to the US accepting bitcoin as a legitimate currency and even embracing it in the Sennate hearings... that is good news, and it helped that we had China on our side to move the price above $1000 for the first time. I would call 2013 the year of bitcoin, not 2014.