As for being technically outdated, I have to disagree. When billions of dollars are at stake, you need no fancy untested technologies.
Depends what is your goal. It is true, that a tested technology should be implemented, but that does not mean there would be no other that can do everything better.
The main problem I see with Bitcoin, are the slow transactions, high transaction fees, the power usage by the vast mining infrastucture. The slow transactions are due to the block times and the increasing difficulty. On the other hand, these (power usage, and the mining infrastucture) provide a basic minimum value to bitcoin.
You need a stable, tested code, a code backed up by excellent developers that has endured the test of time.
Otherwise things like the Ethereum DAO hack or similar hacks are just around the corner.
I think Ethereum DAO is built onto the chain, not essentially proving that Ethereum would be less capable than Bitcoin, for anything. But I might be wrong pn this one.
having a USD pairing in altcoins doesn't mean altcoins are now independent and not dependent with Bitcoin. Bitcoin will always have an impact in altcoin even if there is an available pair for USD in Bittrex because the traders doesn't rely their trades in USD pair, they always trade using BTC pair.
Never really said that alts are completely independent, but I see this action of Bittrex as a step towards that. I would love to see bigger coins, like ETH being on their own, acting free of Bitcoin. Obviously, the bigger coins will have an impact on each other, you are right about that.
But I can see some traders might rather opt for a USD pair if its convenient, and easily available.
I guess with time, we can see the influence it brings. If we could buy altcoins straight from fiat currency at an exchange, that could mean losing dependence on Bitcoin. But it might be just me.