My answers are in Red. Please excuse my unfamiliarity with the site!
No problem, you'll figure it out in not time
That what we're here for, a healthy debate.
I would have to politely disagree, the team has no responsibility towards ICO investor other than what was stated on the white paper. Implying that this is a secure investment doesn't hold any water. Investment and secure are an oxymoron.
While it is partially true that the investors have the ability to pump the price, miners are the one keeping the records in a decentralized manner in addition to providing mined coins to the investors. Unless investors are fine buying directly from the dev team's supply of coins and they would also keep the records for those investors! This is the definition of centralized currency
They do have a responsibility, yes. As you say, to implement the whitepaper and show their worth. They are the initial investors.
And I'm am not impying any investor pumps. I am speaking of a healthy valuation of the project as the team delivers on the roadmap.
Mining is not free by any means and if the team will chose to create a distinction in the coin holders base, miners vs investors, I can almost guarantee you that this project will go nowhere unless you become a centralized coin like xrp where you have no input whatsoever and where the dev team would do what they like with the blockchain. A centralized model crypto has proven to be the least liked in the community.
Of course it is not free. That is my point. Serious network securing infrastructure requires serious monthly opreational costs. It is a business, or should be - even at a hobby level. And these miners you describe, are only interested in immediate resturns. The real value of this coin is not in it's mining potential, but on the real world use of the token.
Then how to separate people that held the coin after purchasing it from the people that dumped it all at a higher value than the current one?
Easy.
1 - If prices rises above ICO initial price, there is no airdrop - as stated in the official release
2 - If price does not rise above ICO, all addresses holding the initial balance or above, are aligible - this is not a statement, just my ideas on things