If we need smarter, better, faster, more informed, super leaders to decide things for us and hold back the excesses of the people, to have our betters constrain, control, and limit the will of the people...then that is not democracy except through redefining the therm.

Whose democracy definition are you using? The one of the ancient Greeks? To what extend does it matter whether our present system is democracy as they would have wanted democracy to happen?

Why do you think that democracy as you define it is the most important thing?