yeah, the self preservation 51% avoidance principle works well in theory, but not so well if someone like  a government is trying to damage Bitcoin. In such a scenario, the fewer mining operations, the easier it would be to take over, coerce, attack a majority of the network. Thus the network is currently theoretically less secure than it used to be, and will be less secure as it becomes increasingly 'centralised' by operations who have the means to get their hands on the latest bleeding edge ASIC tech ahead of everyone else.

I guess what I'm wondering is whether the proneness to mining centralisation that we're currently experiencing might be a rather a short/medium term issue, lasting only until ASIC production reaches the same technological limits as for current IC production, whereby the latest ASICs wouldn't become obsolete quite as quickly as they do currently, thus making small-scale (so more decentralised) mining more viable for longer periods.

Any ASIC tech-savvy people know if this slowing of ASIC advances to an asymptote is likely outcome any time soon?