Great points.
I see a lot of the same attitude on here as when I was messing around with penny stocks. Every post on Reddit was how ABC company was going to be a 50 bagger. It is funny to see the posts about how ABC coin will be the next bitcoin. Same mentality, different mechanism.
The truth is that more than half the cryptos listed outright scams with no worth whatsoever. You mentioned barrier to entry...the truth is an ICO has a low barrier to entry which means many people are developing a coin, having an ICO, and going to some island on a beach.
Yeah, I guess you can look at barrier to entry as a bad turn of phrase when there is so much money in crypto.... It's more about barrier to success.