Right, so hurting, but not dead. Browsing over all 100 pages of the Aeon ANN topic showed me that as well.
Oh honey. Formerly anonymint (and others); apparently some people know of him and some work he has done in Computers/Economics over the last decades. I don't know much about him other than what I've read here on Bitcointalk (I'm not aware of his real-life identity, and it's my understanding that he doesn't wish that to be public). He is famous here for writing a Game of Thrones-sized amount of essays about the current political and economic state of the world, as well as continually promising some incredible new cryptocurrency that will blow everything else away. Rarely, if ever, does he take any time to come hang out on the Altcoin boards vs. the Economics one. I like his writing style, but think he struggles with issues like letting go of his ego (something that took me many years to accomplish as well). Also, he sometimes he gets a little too paranoid/fringe in his economic theories for my tastes (for example, his dire warnings about the SEC and speculating in altcoins). But he is clearly intelligent, and has been one of the most active members of Bitcointalk over the years.
Yes, altcoins are a little subversive.... but just imagine if the original Bitcoin pioneers had stopped to think: "Hey guys, are you sure that this is going to be approved by everyone? Like, we're not going to offend anyone by creating this new money out of thin air, right?" Bitcoin would have never existed. Sometimes envelopes need to be pushed, though I think everything going on in the altcoin world (including those shady IPO/premine coins) is perfectly legal - though perhaps not ethically defensible.
Aeon is a pure PoW coin that everyone has had equal access to since it's creation. Because it's a financial 'network' it also must carry a value; if it didn't carry any value, it wouldn't be a financial network. The two concepts are intrinsically linked. Right now, the free market has decided that given all the factors surrounding Aeon, it is worth about 2 cents each. In the future that number may go up, or down. It's up to every person to make decisions about ownership and involvement as they see fit.