> They have explicitly stated that a move to a permissionless system is their end goal.

Of course, they were very happy to make all kinds of vague, rosy promises right out of the gate... it doesn't cost them anything to do so.

Doesn't matter; there are no technical details for this, and so far nobody has a solution on how to do this. Yes, permissionless networks exist; but no network has transitioned from a permissioned to a permissionless network. While transitioning from a permissioned to a permissionless network, you open your gates to a horde that are financially incentivized to exploit this newfound permission. How then are you going to secure yourself from an attack? Nobody has this figured out. It's mathematically unsound.