Note that altcoins are created not because they can be better than bitcoin (which in some cases may be true), but because their creators think: "Why should I buy an existing coin, and see its early adopters become filthy rich at my expense, when I can create my own altcoin, and become filthy rich at other people's expense?"
BCnext launched Nxt for exactly 21 BTC, it was by design as the number 21 was symbolic to him, once he hit that mark he closed investment and launched. BTC was valued at about the same amount as now when he closed funding. So your point is not true. Not everyone is purely money motivated. The people that called his distribution a scam were day traders who were angry they didn't participate during the two months the IPO was open. Of course, Nxt isn't really an alt coin in the true sense of the form, because it's not a clone of anything.