Some of the altcoins have been around since 2010. How many exchanges are allowing them? And regarding the "soon to be allowed in exchanges such as Vault of satoshi, prelude.io, and Cryptsy" argument.... It is all BS. They will never be allowed in any of the major exchanges. Even in 2013, a lot of people were posting rumors that Mt Gox will soon accept altcoins. Nothing happened. However, the posters benefited when the value of altcoins rose as a result of the rumors.
What? These are not rumour. They are available in the exchange I named, and Cryptsy even already has it's Doge/USD market page. And they are a few on major exchanges BTC-e and Kraken too (which even has Doge/USD, too). Other than Bitstamp, most exchanges seem open to the idea of trading altcoins.