Eh, hardforking is absolutely not what you make it out to be. Segwit as a soft fork is much more dangerous than a hard fork. Segwit is also not an efficiency gain at all - it is actually the opposite. Sure it does make second layer solutions like lightning easier but it is not essential. On chain scaling is fine.
Say what you want about BU and their bugs. None of that pertains to emergent consensus - run a core node with an EC patch, run a Bitcoin Classic or XT.
Trust me because I say so is what I'm hearing.
Don't trust me, that is the last thing I want.
A SW transaction is larger than a non SW transaction- fact.
Soft fork dangers - ehh you could argue with me but I would take a look at this post first
SW is not essential for lighting - fact
Hate BU? Core nodes with EC patch works just fine. - fact
You don't have to take my word for it!
Ok I'm not arguing... if not SegWit, what malleability fix is out there?
Flexible Transactions
Segwit is much much more than a malleability fix; it has so much bloat because of the desire to deploy as a soft fork.
But it is optional.
Optional? In that it should be deployed as a hard fork? Or that we don't need segwit in the first place, because we don't.