litecoin took the tried and tested from bitcoin, few twigs to improve. personally I find the litecoin clients way better to deal with then bitcoin, moving litecoins from exchange to exchange way faster then bitcoin in my experience making it way more user friendly to traders (opportunity cost).
yet has almost the same market useability, almost all exchanges trade litecoin.
trading vol exceeds all other alts combined.
bitcoin has had serious road blocks in its attempt to attract wall street, etf come up against serious issue, though they'd be overcome, strangely enough litecoin has none of these (namely anon dev, billions of usd worth unaccounted for eg satoshis presumed stash, stolen batches etc ie; nightmare for regulators).
crapcoin pumpers may keep their heads in the sands, but the truth is there are valid reasons why litecoin holds and continues consitantly to maintain number 2 spot.