There is a lot to unpack there. I'll just tackle one point out of many. The so-called "blocksize" war was unfortunately named. It was much more a governance war than a war about size. In fact, every side proposed an increase in block space. The bigger question was whether folks like Roger Ver, Brian Armstrong, Erik Voorhees, Mike Belshe and their VCs would run bitcoin, or whether the core devs and community would. Not only did the underdogs win that war, but the market responded positively to it. The problem with the debate was that a governance change was part of the proposal.