I disagree that stored value is a key component in the short term adoption phase. Your premise of transactional safety is based on relative value based on the value of a traditional currency, when the whole point of a crypto currency is so that you don't have to "cash out" back into traditional currency. In crypto, 1coin will always be worth 1coin and when you stop comparing it to purchasing power of normal fiat currency, it's easier to put in your $20 every once in a while and spend it where you can to support the tech/philosophy.

You're actually touching on a big debate in the cryptocurrency community, store of value vs. ease of transaction. This difference in dev philosophy is the root cause of the fork between bitcoin (BTC) and bitcoin cash (BCH), where BCH is focused on having low fees and reasonable sized blocks so it can be useful for many small daily transactions.