I am more and more a fan of competing currencies. I know the "there can be only one" crowd is pretty purist and I get that but why not let people choose their own money.
I don't think I this point that you really need to compare Vertcoin to Bitcoin. I think that what you need to consider is what the next best alternative to Litecoin is...
What I ponder now is valuation of bitcoin (i have argued that it is absolutely not a bubble for months and that said, damn is the chart ever a textbook bubble it makes me really nervous).
If I were bitcoin rich, and I am not, I would have 20% of my coin spread across ltc amd vtc as a hedge of sorts. I could see the spread between them narrowing only on the sheer cliff that separates them now for what has the same storage use once we have an exchange that doesnt. Completely. Suck.
In regards to your first point about the valuation of bitcoin, one factor that most people don't consider is that some number of Bitcoins have been lost with estimates ranging anywhere from 30% to 65% due to carelessness in the early days when bitcoin wasn't worth anything.
http://readwrite.com/2014/01/13/what-happens-to-lost-bitcoins#awesm=~ov8aMQFKMZNfOT So I think that you need to take this into account when looking at the total Bitcoin valuation of 12B USD and realize it might be closer to 6B USD.
The market cap of the three largest remittance companies that I know of are(UAE is estimated):
Western Union 8B USD
UAE exchange ~5B USD
Moneygram 1B USD
giving just these three remittance companies a valuation of 14B USD compared to maybe 6B for bitcoin. Also, Bitcoin will do things for e-commerce and Forex that none of these companies could even dream of which are many of orders of magnitude larger. So, in the short term we may see some correction in the price of Bitcoin, maybe down to $500 USD, but in the long term it is no where near its potential.
In regards to your second point, if I were bitcoin rich I would do the exact same thing.
That may be the right way to value it. On the other hand the payment networks have disgusting gross margins. Part of bitcoin value is it shaves those to nil. So on an earnings basis they would not compete. On the third hand (as an economist I get three hands at least), in theory bitcoin can be multiples larger than the furrent carriers because global and paywalls, micropayment or realtime payments (wouldnt it be badass if people fould pay their bills by the hour instead of every 1st and 15th or whatever?? No bottleneck at paydats in the economy, could do it wit pension payments and welfare bennies even) etc. bigger market.
I break into a few angles though. Vtc is the first thing I have seen worth buying (obviously long there) for spec potential because they are A+ devs with an A- algorithm. As a store of value I cannot buy btc here because it is terrifying to buy something for $800 that was $9 a year ago. That is not sound investment stratagy on my part and I would have said same at $90 last march or whenever so grain of salt. It is just a lot of money to have exposure. But if a couple alts, and ltc and vtc fit the bill for now can hold stable i see them as savings acccounts to my bitcoin checking account. Or vtc maybe more an IRA since by the time I ever get an order done on coinedup to sell some I will probably be old enough to make it qualified money.
Don't know I. Am no expert but bitcoin is close to being widely enough accepted i can start weening off the fiat altigether and that makes altcoin diversification, while still totally sketch, more appealing and at the same time btc as backbone is crucial as payment system and fiat gateway even if i keep my savings in altcoin.
But isn't that a beautiful picture emerging as fuzzy as it is. Bankless living, amen.