This isn't quite right. The rate of production has increased, because the computing power is increasing at a very high rate between difficulty adjustments. Blocks are being solved faster than they are "supposed" to be, statistically.
It won't last, eventually the increase in computing power will taper off, but that's the state of things at the moment.
>the rate of production is fixed, so no one would have predicted that.
IIRC, the arguments actually went that GPU miners had their equipment already paid for, and so could afford to hoard their mined coins, but that ASIC miners, who were paying thousands of dollars for their equipment, would be forced to sell their coins immediately to pay for their equipment & electricity.
I'd dare say the majority of GPU miners did invest in new equipment. I'd venture that there were plenty of nerds who were interested in mining that didn't already have rigs with decent GPUs already.
the rate of production is fixed, so no one would have predicted that.
asic would increase the difficulty level significantly though.