I think the OP shares my sentiment that it's a shame Bitcoin doesn't use /actual/ work (some result that is easy to check but difficult to compute) as the basis

I think the OP shares my sentiment that it's a shame Bitcoin doesn't use /actual/ work (some result that is easy to check but difficult to compute) as the basis for mining. The other thing that I feel went wrong as a direct result of this is that instead of Bitcoin using the /ability/ to do work as a lottery for handing out initial currency it has been biased towards nonce specific hardware (instead of general computing) being used; with the result that the protocol has stagnated and cabals are now able to collude to control the protocol.