Don't kid yourself, Bitcoin development is very much centralized, the users will accept whatever client distributed by Gavin Andressen, just like they will accept the upcoming block size hard fork, without realizing there are better solutions available to solve the problem.
That is not how the discussions work within Github and you are conveniently ignoring the other implementations.
I agree with some of your statements of the weaknesses and limitations of PoW and the inherent costs. What you fail to disclose are all the benefits.
Take for example another solution. Bitshares using DPoS. I was told by several active proponents that it is more secure and decentralized than Bitcoin and PoW and BTSX was a "True" deflationary currency because it would never grow beyond 1,999,883,512 coins. One month latter a one developer is able to leverage his time between a competing DAC to influence most of the delegates into a merger to create a capital infusion to help pay for development costs or his salary. So it looks like 2.5 billion will be the new number. I wonder how long that will remain true?
Good luck, raising the 21 million cap within bitcoin sir.
The bitshares merger is overwhelmingly approved by users and delegates. When was the last time Bitcoin development direction were put up for a vote by all users? was the blocksize hardfork put up for a vote by all Bitcoin users?
do you think the Bitcoin cap can't be raised if there's a need for it and users overwhelmingly approve? How is this even related to PoW vs PoS at all? in both system, the cap CAN be raised period