[Aqueous]

Then the hope is that economic productivity increases at such a slow rate that the BitCoin isn't appreciating in value quickly enough to make it irrational to spend one.

Just like monetary policy attempts to set inflation at such a rate (~1%) that it isn't irrational to save, but it is slightly more rational to spend.

I think, though, that if everyone agreed, BitCoin could eventually change to borrow some concepts from PPCoin, and restart the production of currency, once it reached a plateau of adoption. It isn't impossible to change the current production limits - just difficult. At that point BitCoin would probably splinter into two currencies, one which has a deflationary monetary policy and one which has an inflationary one.

At that point - is it still a libertarian currency? We've just traded one governing body - the US govt - for another - the BitCoin Foundation.