I remember reading about pruning and ethereum in a same sentence before, they must be working on it.
Only time will tell, but there's really no returning back for Dan if he leaves EOS shortly after, but at that point he can buy an island or two for himself so it'll be fine.
And yes, Dan always mentions how he can spit out these different projects out fast and then he leaves the rest to fix them or to keep together. Bitshares seems to be holding fine though.
So do you think there's any blockchain that's doing "it" right now or have we yet to see such a project? Will any of these projects be running in 10 years.
What you said in the last paragraph is where I think Dan is going with his "Blockchain OS" concept. You raise some great points and are obviously no spring chicken to coding and systems architecture.
Having a solid foundation upon which to build higher layers is an important architectural principle. As things change in the upper layers they impose new requirements on the lower layers that test how flexible and comprehensive the foundation layers were designed. Sometimes a redesign of the foundational layer is more cost effective or quicker to implement than trying to retrofit changes (refactoring) to meet new requirements.
I'm reminded of the way the systems of the Voyager space probe were designed, both hardware and software, and b/c that design was so good the probe had a much longer lifespan that was ever anticipated. This depth of engineering and innovation is what we need for systems whose aim is to make mainstream institutions obsolete. We need long term thinking motivated by the value to humanity, not limited by greed or personal gain. An attitude of altruism but marketed in a way that provides support.
I want to read more of your ideas to motivate coders via 'monetisation of code', but on the surface it doesn't address this altruistic / innovation aspect for the long haul. It does address personal rewards for the coders, but it's divorced from the goal and purpose of the coding effort. It's not easy to anticipate future needs and build flexible systems than are adaptable to those needs in a cost effective way. How that type of innovation is incentivized and rewarded is the distinction I'm getting at.