Why did we fail before?
Simple. Giving away coins for free essentially makes them worth nothing. We have not been dormant, we have been working to make these coins relevant and this is how.
I don't think that is why you failed. Just look at Community Coin. All of their coins were given away for free, and they are succeeding fairly well. The communitycoin holders are refusing to sell their coins, and that makes the coin worth something.
We tried to offer rewards for not dumping, but it didn't help.