When evaluating protocol upgrades, the real challenge isn't whether a feature is useful—it's sizing the change against the existing system. Here's where things get tricky: backwards compatibility sounds great in theory, but it often leads to a one-way street where features keep piling on and rarely get pruned away.

The result? Protocol bloat. Ethereum's accumulated enough layers and edge cases that the network is becoming increasingly complex to maintain and develop. Rather than endlessly patching and extending, what the ecosystem genuinely needs is honest assessment: which features still matter, and which ones could be safely deprecated?

It's not just about adding better tools—sometimes simplification and active garbage collection are the real upgrades.