[ece]

For certain cases of attacks, yes with minority forks, and by destroying the attackers stake in other cases, see the section titled "Attacks are much easier to recover from in proof of stake" here: https://vitalik.ca/general/2020/11/06/pos2020.html

[loceng]

So why not just have a trusted centralized authority(ies), arguably democratically elected who control the system(s), and where there isn't a transfer of wealth weighted from late adopters towards earlier adopters?

[ece]

That's another alternative, which doesn't exist yet. Ethereum PoS could be here sooner and doesn't use energy like PoW does, along with other helpful features.