This is why we have so many coins, but so few that are actually valuable long-term. The ones that are tend to offer either a built in feature that makes it seem inherently valuable, or offers services that make it a viable currency. As most altcoins are built on bitcoind, you'll find that altcoins that gain value without needing additional features can have services easily made available, as a system built for one bitcoind-based coin is extremely simple to adapt to another. Hence why we have coin services like exchanges, block explorers, gambling sites, currency payment gateways, and so on. All of which can host multiple coins.

The problem with this is that if your coin is heavily dependent on being listed via those services, and with so many altcoins out there, unless you buy your way onto them, vote your way onto them, or are otherwise listed for your coin's perceived uniqueness, then you won't get anywhere. This allows heavily manipulation, as you could easily create pump and dump currencies by buying your way onto these services.

It's a catch-22. You want your altcoin to be used, so it needs services, but to get services, it needs to be used. This is why we get pump and dumps. Gimmicks are perceived as features, and so coins get "used" (by this I mean bought/sold), and this then gets the services. But then the coin gets dumped, because gimmicks are not features that hold long term investment value. A lot of the features touted by such coins aren't even really needed. The community doesn't need them. The community just thinks these features gives the coin more value. The features that really are useful and in high demand, are the ones you'll see in coins that have the highest market caps.

Think in terms of platforms, not features.