Offer and demand of bitcoins is mainly speculation (gambling) instead of a real use of the currency. This way the behavior of the price is uncertain (some periods of high volatility, others of high stability).
Store of value is a very real and valid use of a currency and some might question whether the numbers on their bank accounts really do provide this feature in times like these. I'm pretty sure that a good percentage of people speculating on Mt. Gox simply do so because they actually just want to hold a part of their wealth in Bitcoins but don't want to lose out because of its volatility.
In order to fix this problem we need more entrepreneurs, engineers and developers (real work), and less economists, speculators and gamblers (zero-sum game).
While i totally agree that this would be a good thing, Bitcoin does have some unique properties all by itself which might make it appealing in the current phase of global economic uncertainty. I'd never advocate Bitcoin as a safe investment but to diversify some of your holdings into Bitcoin is surely a rational choice for many people. Think about it: even if there was not a single merchant accepting Bitcoin by itself, it would still be valuable as a very secure, non-inflatable, cheap and easy to transfer, global unit of account together with a pretty reliable transaction system that cannot realistically be shut down. There's not much else on earth fitting this description.
Oh and volatility will certainly come back - no worries
