Although I agree with you that a lot of the most valuable work in crypto is hidden in the in the non-marketed, super-boring technology, I wouldn't be completely dismissive of what Bancor's tech is promising.
In a world of a billion tokens, liquidity will be crucial. Underused, hyper-local and ethereal tokens will still need to trade. This thesis is defended by Consensys' work on Omega One.
And I also agree that this level of fervor is dangerous, but it is also the fuel of the entire crypto ecosystem. New technologies would never take hold without a certain level of risk takers and over-exuberance. The zealots that will always defend the dream, despite the perfectly valid mud and arrows flung at them.
Aside: This is also a post-DAO world and precautions are being taken - Learning from the DAO
What Bancor aims to do Tendermint is already doing, with a much better consensus protocol (BFT - Byzantine Fault Tolerant DPoS). Why use Bancor when you already have something that works as advertised?
I remember how many search engines existed before Google. When Google came, no one survived.
Why assume the winner-take-all, monolithic system paradigm that worked so well in the centralized space will do the same in the decentralized space?
Centralized system drew power from the network effects.
A decentralized system doesn't need that much of a network effect if the core layer below it is widely used. It can benefit from the long-tail more freely.
For example, look at how the major Clouds (AWS, Google, Azure) have simplified development for software platforms. This has led to an explosion of services in the SaaS space. Sure, you can get one of the big CRMS, but there are also niche ones that may fit your needs better. CRMs for restaurants, CRMS for doctors, lawyers, dentists etc.
I, for one, hope all of the dApps win.
I don't think competition is evil, I encourage it. But Bancor doesn't even do yet what Tendermint (and OpenLedger / BitShares, for what matters) is already doing. What I try to warn about is the content of the business, Right now, there is no content in the Bancor business, whereas Tendermint and Openledger are battle-tested ecosystems. Putting that amount of money into a content-less business is risky, to say the least.
Because people who are not experts have limited attention.