You are making things far more complex than they need to be. I think you are trying to elevate the solution so some sort of a metaphysical level and this is subconsciously because you don't want to consider the engineering problems.
At the end of the day, when the parts of the ecosystem are broken down into their constituent components (and sub-components) we are looking at things that are not all that complex by the standards of other engineering problems we humans have solved. It is literally 'not rocket science'. It's not trivial either of course, but for better or worse, what Satoshi came up with was actually rather primitive in some ways.
An engineer who cannot or will not define and end-goal to some level of specificity is basically planning to fail. That is exactly what Gavin is doing whether by accident or design.
Anyway, it's a simple fill-in-the-blank type question that I asked. Wanna have a go at it? Nobody else seems to.
The monetary supply of bitcoin is a 2d software version of the pyramids. But it doesn't observably seem so on the surface until you apply the new Nashian/Szabonian economics through Adam Smith and on into our history. Since szabo bridged Twon and Software with a formula, you could then literally compare the bit to the (royal) cubit in some meaningful form and come up with the perfect parameter (which seemingly would likely match Gav's "intuition") for "block size".
Proof of work, consensus, transactions, contracts, fees (wages) RELIGION.
It's going to be long, and take a while, but we'll make some amazing. connections, like the 4 color/map theory to the kula ring conjecture. None of it could be put together before "block-chain" economics and the concept of "ideal money". The pyraminds no doubt have an effectively ideal printing scheme, a representation or symptom of a secure and stable economy. No doubt left behind for a new standard. Now we have reason to understand why we don't know how they were built.
Cliffs: securing this parameter will bring us into a new age
I'll write this all up into something intelligible and with "points"/citations.