Nowadays many coins are just copies and bring nothing new. But can be profitable if you do your research.
Bitcoin will probably always be #1 in coins as every other coin converts into btc. Followed by litecoin and peercoin.
Not all of them. I invested in AMS and its a solid altcoin that was just 100 satoshi a few weeks ago.
I agree that not all of them is just a shitcoin for pump and dump of the greedy however we cant say new coins are "solid" until it is months old coz anything can turn to scam in their young days in the market
Even at months later it still can go down. Look at Doge it had a community like no other coin. I liked it's community and one day it turned opposite way and was not a great bet. It still is around but one could argue it's best day's are behind it.
Sadly a lot of coins are pump/dump. They pre-mine them and say X for X service... etc. They justify pre-mining with this in quite a few coins. I do not believe in coins that pre-mine. The best alt litecoin everyone knew when it would start and he mined the 1st block and then everyone else was able to mine right away. Even released things in advance so people could test it and make sure mining would work for them on start.
I think alt coins are fun, but new ones sadly a lot of times turn out not so well. Like burst do the calculations its horrible on the "hd mining" it makes no sense. But every few weeks a burst coin guy will come through and praise it looking for suckers to mine it.