Higher difficulty means more protection for the network.
As the diffculty increases, less individuals get involved in Bitcoin mining and it turns into a corporate venture. In theory this should protect the network, but it turns Bitcoin into a centralized operation. When these groups amass a significant amount of Bitcoin, they can control the exchange side of things. In the end, we get the same problems we are having with fiat currency.
This is 100% correct.
There is no difference between central banks and massive centralised "corporate" mining operations. (Technically there is a difference - but to the man on the street their is none) ASICS's have driven DOWN the price of Bitcoins.
Looking at ASICMiners charts it looked as though they used to use mining pools to spread some of the hashing power - now they mine solo.
http://www.asicminercharts.com/Their infrastructure is an absolute joke - no resilience - no redundancy - Look at the massive swings in their network hashing power - What are their disaster recovery plans - I would hazzard a guess and say none. The chances of them having another data centre mirroring their primary with the equivalent number of ASICS is zero - because they would just mine with those as well. All they care about is filling their pockets as quickly as possible.
If they go offline because of a Data Centre fire then what?
Zero commitment to ensuring the stability of bitcoin - recently there have been massive variations in transaction times due to ASICminer.
They have gone completely against the ethos of Bitcoin.
If hardware can not be bought off the shelf for next day delivery then it just makes the entire mining game and ELITIST business just like the banks.
AVALON mining with customers fully paid hardware driving up the difficulty then making all kinds of bullshit excuses just so they can fully "rape" their customers equipment.
BFL don't even start me on those comedians - honestly I have never seen such a level of incompetence in my entire life - literally stringing their customers along with the 2 week story.
If asics had been rolled out in a fair and even manner then it would be slightly different. But the case is this I would estimate that 70% - 80% of the network hashing power is asics - considering fewer than 10% of miners actually have them does not make for a level playing field, causes resentment and hence the rise of the ALT scrypt coins.