Serious question: why does everyone think so highly of bitcoin here?

From my (rather limited) understanding, bitcoin is the least impressive implementation of a blockchain ledger.

Just look at the block size limit, which has a use, but also didnt seem very well thought out. The block reward is also follows a pretty wierd pattern. Why not make it smooth?

Not that bitcoin isnt cool, but many later implementations actually solved these problems in ways that really impressed me.