I dont see it being contentious. It is a huge change, don't get me wrong, but 'crypto' and 'huge change' are overlapping characteristics. But mainly is uncontentious because it makes any token holder a potential block validator, so it is incentivizing to a much broader part of the Eth community.
You're gonna have to go into more detail with what you mean by "detractors", the development team seems to have consensus among them
have you not noticed the years of battle about a simple block size change in bitcoin? can you begin to imagine how contentious an algorithm change would be?
obviously bitcoin is a very different beast, but i wouldn't expect something this fundamental to smoothly go through. they couldn't avoid the creation of ethereum classic, this won't be any different.
ethereum was absolutely tiny back then in comparison to now and some believed its existence was at stake yet it was still opposed by some. these days there are vested interests and entrenched opinions.
i also don't believe every single person involved in ethereum is a believer in PoS.
go and look up nothing at stake.
