The World Wide Web as we know it today is the product of layers upon layers of protocols added over time to address various problems, so, you know, you don't always just toss out the base and start over.

Newbie thinks he sees the light.

Technically there is nothing which can't be changed in Bitcoin.  Bitcoin is what a consensus of users say it is.  That being said there are many thing which will likely never acheive the necessary consensus for a change.  

Bitcoin will probably never:
a) be reversable
b) support a proof of stake
c) have an incompatible mining rate
d) implement some mechanism of recovering "lost" coins.

While in theory these could be changed they are simply too controversial to generate a consensus.

IMHO there are very few limitations of Bitcoin which can't be overcome with:
a) third party services.
b) extension of bitcoin protocol.
c) extension via higher level protocols which are built on top of bitcoin infrastructure.

That isn't exactly correct.

Any breaking change must be supported by EVERYONE.  Users, miners, exchanges, merchants, etc.

So if 51% of miners implemented that change those who disagreed could continue to use the "old/existing" Bitcoin where miners can't steal 10% of all coins.   The 51% of miners would simply be mining worthless blocks which have no value.

As long as some users and miners continue to support the current protocol it will exist.  What gets kinda meta is what is Bitcoin.

Say some miners decide to fork the protocol to keep the block reward at 50 BTC.  Since this is a breaking change it doesn't really matter if 20% of miners support it, or 80%.  The "51% check as in 51% attack" doesn't apply since each version of the protocol sees the other as completely invalid regardless of how much mining power supports it.  Now lets make it extra confusing. Lets say roughly half of the users support this change and upgrade their nodes but roughly half don't.  Some merchants support the "old" coins, some the "new" coins, and some support both (by implementing both nodes).  The same applies to exchanges.

Essentially at this point you have to completely independent protocols.  Which one is Bitcoin?   Obviously both camps will claim they are the real Bitcoin.

would the OP care to defend his supposition please?

The fork to always generate 50 coins per block instead of halving the number of coins from time to time has already been done.

It is not a big hassle change with miners breaking each way since it can be merged-mined.

There is not even the big hassle of which chain your coins are on since you can very inexpensively spend coins of the old, original "bitcoin" chain to join this particular member of the group of bitcoin-like currencies.

It is known as GRouPcoin.

It is obviously far, far superior to the original old bitcoin if you are among those who believe not halving coin generation is far, far superior to the old original bitcoin's periodic halving.

-MarkM-

trolled by a drunk

Will the idea of anonymous, irreversible, indestructable, instant cyber money will be replaced by some better concept serving the needs of users?
A: Probably, some time in the far future.

Will the technology of cryptocurrencies make way for some better technology implementing the above idea?
A: Most certainly it will be rivaled, let the better technology come out on top!

Will bitcoin be replaced by a better implementation of the thechnology of cryptocurrencies?
A: Quite possibly, there are many competing implementations out there already, still many to come, time will tell.

Its the same thing with any idea and the technologies invented to materialize it. Just think of the ideas of filesharing or telecommunication itself.
How many technologies have been created to transform those ideas into reality to bloom in mass use while becoming marginal use cases once better technologies arose? Think of the humble beginnings of file sharing technology: BBS, Usenet, Napster, Gnutella, BitTorrent, DDLs,.. only to name a few. Same goes for telecommunication (Tincan-wire phones, Telephone, mobile communication, VoIP,.. you get the idea) or any other technology.
Bitcoin is open scource with provides it whitch an advantage of innovation over proprietary technology, but not with an everlasting guarantee to always stay ahead of competitors.

Do we still use "Visa" cards or "American Express"?

Those are so old school...

Oh ya...and remember the "Federal Reserve Note"?