There are those who say Bitcoin doesn't scale, and build blockchains with more throughput at the cost of more centralization (generally in the form of it being way harder to run a node), and then also...
I love the quote, "Privacy is necessary for an open society." I agree the battle for privacy on the timechain is important, and you make many valid points. The main problem with paper bitcoin, however is that it re-introduces the double-spending problem.
Since paper bitcoin does not solve the double spending problem, we must work on tools that mitigate the risk. This is why I am excited by protocols like Cashu, Fedimint, and Liquid.
Since paper bitcoin does not solve the double spending problem, we must work on tools that mitigate the risk. This is why I am excited by protocols like Cashu, Fedimint, and Liquid.