the definition of short term varies from a person to another, when we talk about the short term future of bitcoin we usually mean 5-10 years (on the speculation board means 1-2 weeks ) but I "think" in order for bitcoin to continue to mainstream and "survive" there are a lot of things has to be addressed short term ( we are still on the 5-10 years) like the block size limit, transaction fees, the selfish miner issue,regulation.....
the point is that if these issues wont be addressed there will be another alt (not a single from the existing ones) created that solves all existing issues and this is my biggest fear
Why? Bitcoin will simply assimilate it. Bitcoin is like the Borg
Yup. All of the problems you mention are technical problems. Technical problems are easily solved in due time, when needed.
The real challenges ahead lie on the Regulatory and Compliance side of things; specifically on how to successfully co-exist with gov's and fiat.... until we can squash them
There is a great book that describes Bitcoin perfectly.
Bitcoin is the best example of something Antifragile.
http://www.riosmauricio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Taleb_Antifragile.pdf