[jacquesm]

I've used bitcoin for short term transactions to get some money to people that needed it, but in spite of that I have no illusions about that being the exception and not the rule.

At some point tech needs to prove itself through utility and economic viability. This is going to be a difficult to achieve thing for all these coins (BTC and others), and in the bulk of the cases they are money grabs or Ponzi schemes.

That does not help, if the money grabs and the Ponzi schemes (which happen in the 'real world' as well) were a very insignificant minority I suspect the sentiment would be entirely different.