There has been no contentious forks. All upgrades revolve around efficiency or privacy because Monero has clear goals. Monetary policy is not touched. But if that is your concern, don't save in Monero. Use it. A medium of exchange. Save in Bitcoin. Best of both worlds.
If I hand you cash is that "forcing" privacy on you? Makes no sense.
You can choose to make all your transactions public with your viewkey on Monero. The difference is it is your choice to reveal this just like with cash.
The custodial KYC exchange argument applies ten fold to Bitcoin because many more CEXes offer Bitcoin as Monero is being delisted everywhere. And Monero users are more likely to be privacy conscious. Its also worse when you do withdraw with Bitcoin because the average person can and will be traced.
Yes, you can plead fee reduction, but they can see and ask why you made certain choice. Such as CJing or not routing thru a centralized node would be contradictory to saving in fees.
A more honest thing to say is all of them have tradeoffs, not that Lightning is a replacement for Monero. Which is my whole point of contention.