The way I am thinking about it is sort of like those threads on HN where someone says "You can create a Dropbox clone in N lines of X and an external hard drive". That's NOT a Dropbox "clone", but rather something that could be used to replace Dropbox for some people some of the time. It would take much, much more to replace Dropbox, and maybe someone will get it right someday. Same goes for Bitcoin, it's fine to think of alternative financial networks (awesome, in fact, I hate banks!) but it's important not to get ahead of ourselves.
