I think the root of the issue is that bitcoin was created in a vacuum. Some guy didn't start minting euro bills in his basement until France and Germany though "hey, we could use that". The financial systems already existed, and they created the currency to unify pre-existing European currencies.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin don't have this institutional momentum so they need to reward its users to drive adoption, which is self-defeating in the long run because when I spend a 20 euro bill I don't think "uh, maybe I should just keep it for now, it'll be worth more tomorrow". Actually if anything I think the opposite due to inflation.
But from the client's perspective it's pretty crappy for basically the same reasons. In general if you want to impose a new payment system it's really the buying side that needs convincing. If tomorrow a significant portion of the population wants to buy good and services preferably with Bitcoins, that would drive adoption massively. Thing is, from a user experience standpoint cash and Visa and still vastly more convenient, so the vast amount of buyers won't want to bother with cryptocurrency at the moment.
But as with many idealists, Satoshi and his crypto friends probably didn't think too hard about the problems outside their expertise.