Regarding the knowledge-based economy and the reduction of the importance of intergenerational wealth, I think there is some wishful thinking here.
If knowledge become the most important competitive advantage then, guess what, people will upgrade their brains. And that will initially cost a lot of money/capital, thus people with accumulated wealth will be able to easily conserve their competitive advantage assuming they are ready to adapt. Of course some won't adapt and they will lose their status, but the cause would be, as always, the unwillingness to adapt, not the economic paradigm shift per se.
Humans are a very hierarchical species. If knowledge is the new ultimate social weapon then, people, in order to climb in the pecking order, will compete for knowledge as hard as they competed for physical assets. And knowledge by itself will not magically destroy the importance of hereditary advantages in the competition.