dunno about the Vitalik quote but it just seems to me that bitcoin has reached the point of no return and simply is what it is.

In other words, I believe that consensus will never be reached on increasing the block size limit.  AND THAT'S OK.

In fact, its better than OK.   Because it demonstrates that the rules of the game cannot be changed mid flight.   At least not for anything contoversial.   If controversial changes could be made then it undermines trust in all cryptocurrency.   Today block-size increase, tomorrow 21 mil increase, etc.

The consensus layer is just that.  An agreement by everyone that's opted in to using bitcoin to date.  Good luck getting all those people to agree on anything controversial.

So what to do about scaling?   The first step is to admit to ourselves that bitcoin is what it is.

Say it.  Bitcoin is what it is.   The most we can do are non controversial soft-forks. 

Given that, it leaves us with things like segwit, side-chains, lightning.

It also leaves us with alt-coins.  Perhaps other coins have or will be devised with properties that inherently scale better than bitcoin.  And/or that have fundamentally better privacy guarantees and decentralization incentives.  If so, the market can dynamically shift to those over time.   Very likely such coins would peg themselves to bitcoin anyway.  Thereby lifting bitcoin's value should the altcoin have a mass-market breakthrough.

The time for major innovation in consensus critical areas is before launching a coin.  not after.   So it is important to get it right from the start.

Bitcoin is what it is.   accept it.