1. Something besides strictly processing payments, and
2. something that is not better served by existing technology, and
3. something that is meaningfully decentralized.
I think the ENS is the 'coolest' of that list, and hits all three of these points.
But I think we can agree ENS is not a convincing example that cryptocurrencies aren't a scam. Auctioning off strings (which may be later sold or rented) is similar to DNS. Except, we know some domains which point to fun sites (like wikipedia.org or tvtropes.org).
A 'cool' example would be some 'cool' Etherem .eth domain. (But not wikipedia.eth, which appears to be hoarded by someone hoarding .eth domains, and not tvtropes.eth, which is actively being auctioned off for $1300 by someone else hoarding .eth domains.)
I don't see how Virgil's story implies some kind of reliance on centralized services? Yes, if a domain owner is unavailable, it will eventually expire; that applies to ENS and DNS equally.
- Self custody of wealth, without having to deal with gold
- Payments that don't rely on a middleman like PayPal, Wise, etc, who are known for regularly blocking legal transactions, and sometimes stealing the funds
- Commerce with real privacy (Zcash, Aleo, Aztec, etc)
- DNS without the censorship or rent-seeking
I'd say most of us in the blockchain space are focusing on making those use cases cheap, secure, frictionless and so forth, rather than trying to come up with cool/interesting applications.