RE: particular ideas if "we" decide the blocksize has to be increased:
I think the first step is to come to rough consensus that, at some point, we WILL need a hardfork to increase the block size limit.
If we can come to rough consensus on that, then we can figure out the safest way to accomplish that.
I don't think we'll get consensus; retep and others will argue "we need to run into the hard limit to FORCE alternatives to be created first."
I keep saying we should see what happens as we run into the soft blocksize limits. To people on both sides of this debate: what do you predict will happen?
If what you predict will happen doesn't actually happen, will that make you re-evaluate your position?
(I haven't spent enough time thinking about this problem to answer those questions, but that is how I'm going to think about it).