It is past time to fully separate them, because it is true. It is just conflated. Bitcoin serves as a protocol, it is just not documented as such, in a way where it is managed that way. Until now, the protocol has been basically what core releases, but as node code diversifies, the nodes and miners vote for the protocol with their adoption, if it leads to a split, as it has before, it is worked out economically. There is a bit of a time that the market takes to decide which branch wins, that branch has historically retained the name Bitcoin and the other is named something else as it continues to lose its fight. In the coming fork wars, the two chains may have a longer fight for victory, depending on the scale of the division. Time will tell if any of this comes to fruition, but I suspect that no one will let their stance die and it will get messy. The good news, everyone gets an altcoin to dump early or hodl to irrelevance. It is what it is.