The answer may be somewhat relative. What is of value to one person, may not be of value to another person.
Personally, I really don't care.
But, if I want to buy low and sell high, then look for low priced coins right now, and the low priced coins can get large percentage increases without even becoming all that valuable, whereas coins that have already risen significantly will require huge amounts of investments in order to get them to go up.
Since it is early days of these coins, therefore I like the low priced coins.
Which one is 'best' then? The lowest priced coin, that will go up by 10x or 100x or 1000x in the shortest amount of time, I suppose, that would be the 'best' coin to me.
But, the odds are not good that I will chose correctly to find that coin.
And once that coin has gone up alot, then it is not the 'best' coin anymore, and it is time to sell, and try to find the next 'best' coin.
Its relative and changing over time.
Overall market sentiment, rather than logic, seems to be driving some of the coins at times.
The 'herd' mentality/mind. The masses of people following the trends. The pumpers on forums or chat having significant effects on coin prices, but that may not last and I think it is a temporary thing. At the same time, bashers can also have significant effects to drive the price of coins down as well. Then there is some people who have more 'clout' or 'pull' who may be more able than others to cause their own hegemonies to get through, such as people who run exchanges. The exchanges have significant amounts of pull, I see. In other words, they can magnify the coins they like, and belittle other coins, if they want to.
For example: Ltc's claim to fame is that ltc may get traded on mtgox, which is an exchange.
Therefore, perhaps which coin will be best in the future will be more decided by the exchanges, or the most popular exchanges, rather than by the masses of the people. Therefore, the answer is in the hands of the few people who own and run those exchanges then, and for the most part, it does not matter what the rest of us think.
For example: Mtgox could start trading in Goldcoins, and goldcoins which are currently low priced, would likely shoot up in value quite alot, and perhaps even surpass LTC in price. So, like I was saying, the exchanges will decide which coins will be the 'best' coins in the future.
Some people in the LTC community may be feeling the heat recently, what with the addition of so many other promising coins, that may compete with LTC, so people who are invested in LTC are trying to move fast to get their coin 'up there', rather than wait, and have other coins perhaps surpass LTC.
But consider that whatever coin Mtgox may add to their exchange, that coins price will likely go up alot.
And the people at mtgox might consider that they can buy alot of the lowest priced coins, such as Goldcoins, and then shock the entire coin community by adding goldcoins while snubbing LTC. And mtgox might gain even more money by doing so, because they can buy so much Goldcoins for so much less, and the rate of increase of the Goldcoins would likely be much greater than any increase in LTC.
Then consider what will happen to the coin that mtgox decides to boot off of its exchange? That coin will likely drop in value alot.
The main power seems to be in the hands of the exchanges, and not in the hands of the coin makers/copiers , nor is it in the hands of the pumpers or bashers either. Just whoever has power at the exchanges will decide which coin will be 'best' or 'higher priced, and mtgox can put almost any coin on their exchange and it would likely become higher priced than ltc.
