Aye, it's really the only option (maybe others like BTCD or Libbitcoin since they're not in positions to be nudging anything)

I have to dismiss Knots v Core takes like the article because they're inherently ignorant of the fact that, just like the gold example, Knots and Core are the same (wrong) side... Which is not monetary maximalism, but application stack maximalism.

The only way to prevent that from happening is so many economic nodes rejecting application blocks that miners start to feel the burn of incentives. That means rejecting "enhancement" of something that already works.

Bitcoin is by design not a technical system, but an incentive one.