Thought cypherdoc might like this article by Daniel Krawisz
http://bitcoinist.net/the-two-ideologies-in-bitcoin/I am sort of imagining it as what underlies his arguments that he doesnt like sidechains.
I think cypherdoc likely still mistaken (and Krawisz as ever makes interesting informed economic arguments).
If nothing else for those who view bitcoin as gold2.0 (and I do myself) then its in our interest actually that there not be code churn on bitcoin-core to add micro-payments, fancy contracts etc etc it's better to fix all the bugs, refactor and freeze the code. Put the code churn onto other chains. But having the other chains be non-bitcoin denominated detracts from bitcoin. Hence... sidechains.
Further if extra features can go into sidechains, perhaps along the way bitcoin could do things to reduce centralisation reduce blocksize, and get rid of extraneous existing code complexity by refactoring some things off into a more featureful sidechain.
btw I read Krawisz as more saying investment utility is the predominant driver of bitcoin adoption, transactional uses secondary.
Anyway just some thoughts, not trying to reanimate the sub-thread.
Adam