Would you call Bitcoin in 2014–2015 “patently not a store of value”? As I remarked above, ZEC is now on its supply curve where BTC was at that time. By your supply-side argument, buying BTC at around $215–$400 and holding it till today would be “patently not a store of value”.
I don’t know about you, but I wish that I could go back in time and store every scrap of available value in BTC at around $215–$400.
If I want to succeed, I strive to learn from success.
ZEC has lost >97% of its value against BTC since mid-2017. That is to say: If you had spent 1.0 BTC to buy ZEC when ZEC was at its ATH against BTC, and you now used the ZEC to buy BTC, you would end up with less than 0.03 BTC.
So, the answer is to make ZEC economically less like BTC? I do not get that type of thinking. ZEC clearly needs to be economically more like BTC!
Better idea: Notice that BTC was a great buy at the time when it was at ZEC’s present point on its supply curve. Have some patience with the supply-side issuance schedule to which, for better or for worse, ZEC committed itself in 2016. And work on the demand side.
The only realistic way for Zcash to beat Bitcoin in scaling is perhaps with recursive zero-knowledge proofs. I hope that that is feasible.
Bitcoin far exceeds Zcash for continued development, on all points except for blockchain privacy. Bitcoin is even ahead of Zcash in network-layer privacy. Zcash needs to catch up to Bitcoin. I know that there is a meme going around that Bitcoin development is moribund; it’s pretty much entirely the opposite of the truth.
The primary reason why people trust BTC is its safety and stability. You can buy BTC, put it into cold storage, go into a coma, wake up years later, and still have your BTC—the thing you bought, with the characteristics you bought, with no nasty surprises. The technology evolves, but the monetary policy is predictable and dependable: You can have confidence in that.
I hope that Zcash has not already irreparably damaged confidence in the long-term economic stability of ZEC. I want for ZEC to be as trustworthy as BTC.
So, you see what I see here.
In addition to the problems that you state, treating the coin like a share of common stock is also an invitation for the SEC to decide that Zcash’s U.S.-based entities and persons are marketing an illegal unregistered security. (I believe that that’s also a problem with POS.)