1) A handful of "respectable" online merchants are now accepting Bitcoin, this proves that real businesses see the value in it. It's likely that others will follow.
This is common mistake. They accept Bitpay - not Bitcoin. You claim you are insider, so you should know difference. Big difference.
Those who accept REAL Bitcoin now suffer from such volatility and get paralyzed.
You should add here that this 2-billion bubble only stays on two interconnected amateur companies - mtgox and bitpay. Bring down any - and everything will collapse.
Let me refute that for you.
A merchant who uses Bitpay to accept Bitcoin and convert into dollars is just as legitimate as a merchant who accepts Bitcoin directly and keep it as such.
The reason is this: Bitcoin's value grows in proportion to the number of places, and ease with which, one can spend it. If every merchant on earth accepted Bitcoin, but converted into USD via Bitpay, then the following fact would be true: Every merchant on earth accepts Bitcoin. At this point, fewer and fewer people would decide to convert to dollars at all. The fact that we aren't there yet doesn't mean the steps to get there are invalid.
And sure, it's true that those who accept Bitcoin "suffer" from volatility. But they've been suffering all the way up to $190. Give me a volatile currency that appreciates over a stable currency that depreciates any day of the week.
And no, taking away Gox and Bitpay would not make Bitcoin collapse, I assure you. Within 3 months, it'd be like nothing happened at all. Why? Because as a trader, it is very easy to switch exchanges. And as a merchant, it is very easy to switch processors. Bitpay's client's do not have to spend months of integration time, and thus if Bitpay disappeared an alternative would be swiftly found. Same with Gox.
Do not confuse a few points of market-based economic concentration (Bitpay/Gox/etc) with rigid centralization.