There might be a good future, or a bad future, or no future; but who ever talks of a good future riddled with bad, or a bad future with islands of good?

Given an FAI singleton or uFAI singleton, islands are improbable. A Malthusian future full of ems, however, seems like a possible fit to your model. So expectations about how intelligence and power will coalesce or diversify are crucial.

But otherwise, this idea that this is the Now that matters the most, reflects a sort of optimism of the will

I think it just reflects a straight-line prediction. Every previous "Now" (as said in the past) was crucial; why wouldn't this one be? I'm assuming that history is pretty chaotic. Small disturbances in the past would lead to vast ones in the present.