At this point I can't help but feel like the main deliverable of "ETH going PoS" is being able to dismiss claims about the obvious wastefulness of the system, not the actual transition.
There's some difference between "so they can dismiss claims about wastefulness" and "so it isn't wasteful" but that's a pretty small distinction. I don't really care which of those two is a bigger motivator.
Or perhaps the bust is a great time to generate some credulous positive news coverage.