It looks like you are having quite a few misconceptions. For example:

What I am saying is that the ERC20 tokens running on Ethereum need to keep running, so there's little opportunity for Vitalik to carry out sharding tests on the network without massively disrupting the ICO ERC20 tokens currently running.

You know that there are test nets, right? Experiments are not ran on the main network.

Thus the ICOs are an obstacle to Ethereum scaling up and being able to compete with EOS, which is already scalable by design.

ICOs are merely a smart contract, they don't really bloat much. They are not a burden really.