Ok so let me be blunt. The bottom line is people want to be able to invest and profit because they can see the potential of this coin, but we're not offering many ways to do that. After some discussion we've decided that isn't necessarily a bad thing, it has some potential benifits. Whenever somebody profits it just takes money out of the coin. If you limit opportunities to dump it then it can have value based on it's utility. If people have less reason to hold then it promotes spending and commerce. We have decided that our approach is the most logical if we want to create a transaction tool and not an investment tool.
But having said that, I honestly think a slowly decreasing block reward wont keep it from increasing in price if people find it useful enough. Many altcoins have proven that the value of a coin can rise and fall very independently from the level of inflation. What really causes the price of a coin to shift is popularity, the level of demand will really determine the value, especially if the level of demand greatly outmatches the level of inflation. Now I know not everyone is happy with this decision, and I'm betting the first clone of Cryptonite will be one with a smaller coin supply and faster distribution rate, and that's fine with us.
If we didn't want people making variants of Cryptonite then we wouldn't release the source. If another variant of Cryptonite turns out to be more popular than the original Cryptonite then so be it, but I'm not convinced they will be more popular unless they can offer something new. What I would really like to see is some sort of good anonymity/mixing scheme which is compatible with the mini-blockchain scheme, I'm sure that would be really popular because many anonymity schemes dramatically bloat the blockchain but with the mini-blockchain scheme the old transactions can be forgotten and it becomes much more manageable.
This is really smart bitfreak!, and if I may give my two satoshis, I'd like to chip in as well. As someone who has followed this project from about the time you started testing, I'm really glad you're making this, and like others, see the potential in it. I really respect the time, money and resources that you've put into it and can see that your vision for the coin has driven all of the decisions about fair release, distribution etc.
I think there is a good reason to reconsider the 184.4B supply, but I think most of the reasons provided by others so far are irrelevant and illogical. The main reason to lower would be to simplify the product. I would argue that this is the most innovative coin this year, but I think everything needs a certain appeal. Some call it marketing, but really I just mean simplicity. You want the focus of the project to be on the innovation and its capabilities. By making the supply 184.4B and half life of 100 years, I have to stop for a second and think about what that means. Logically, there is nothing wrong with this. And after brief consideration, any bright person would realize this is an extremely, if not overly, fair distribution. But still, it sours things just a bit, because I have to focus on something other than the innovation. So, I think merely for simplicity's sake(which goes a long way), you might want to reconsider(again), changing the numbers. You don't have to sacrifice any of the current ratios, but just make the numbers more intuitive.
Either way, I really appreciate this project and the time and effort you've spent into it. I certainly wouldn't have thought of such a fair way to distribute it, nor all of the innovative advantages of the mini-blockchain.