"IMO, ETF's are just another way of controlling the amount of gold being accumulated by "Joe-six-pack"

In that you are right. The ETFs are part of the scam and have absorbed a lot of the demand for gold, that otherwise might have gone into physical gold. Remember the heated discussions on the net about the Gold ETF, when it was created. About the subcustodians and lack of transparency in the auditing arrangement.

However, along with the increasing investments in paper gold there will be increasing investments in physical gold, like we are already seeing in Europe right now. It will be a broad investment wave that cannot be stopped IMO.