Methinks you're too young to know what a BJ is! It's not a real currency, that's for sure, it's something that's done.
And TOR can be traced perfectly well if the governments are determined to do it, so can be bitcoin. It's usually just not worth the increased effort, which can be quite a bit, compared to more traditional methods, nor does most of them invests that much in internet survey over watching things and having snitches. TOR tracking's been done in a couple countries, though more on experimental side since it can be difficult.
Beside, government can always dilute hard metal currency with
debasement, if they're already an hard currency state. And honestly, the economical issues and equations doesn't changes very much with how hard or soft currency is, since both requires a stable state to support them to ensure functional trade and legal system in the place, however primitive it is. If there're no stable state or no currencies are supported, then the trade won't be done in currency, they'd be bartering for want of stable system.
Even bitcoin won't be immune to systematic instability, either in exchange value or in system stability. That's including exchange security and government support.
As for your 'refund' argument, gold price aren't stable, nor are they legal tender since sometimes between 1930's to 1970's when it was decoupled from dollar entirely in USA. Though I am sort of assuming that this is USA-related subject, since I've not spoken to someone outside of it in support of bitcoin or hard currency, as well as personally living in USA
Then again, you can just buy your gold on the free market or from your local gold dealers or jeweler, which'll charge you more for buying it. Then sell it when you need to buy something, which'll get you less than market value. It's virtually the same as whatever magical hard standard someone's dreaming of, just more complicated and actually wasteful, more wasteful than using debit/credit card, really.
In fact, precious metal currency's probably the worst investment you could have, if you're seeking to use it as a trade medium. It's pretty much a signal of having more money than sense nowadays. It's good for personal investment, though, like stock market. If current economy fails, then, well, you'll have more to worry about than your shiny coins.
Food, shelter and protection are far more valuable than whatever shiny shards you can trade in if the economy's broken down. Tin cans of food and boxes of shotgun shell will buy you more than some coin that nobody can use, until things are stable again.
For my personal opinion, bitcoin is an interesting currency system. It just happen to be not viable with how unstable the market is and how little security there are with it, relative to currencies supported by major governments ( Dollar, Euro, Yen, Pound ), with requirement of overseering of the banks. And it's complicated by grey area of the currency itself, completely unrelated to their reputation.