In reality I talk to a lot of people who are considering getting involved with Monero and a few who are evaluating both Monero and DRK, and in practice there is a lot more concern about the DRK instamine
Wrong. There's practically zero concern about the so called "DRK instamine" from any quarter that matters otherwise it would never have reached a number 5 marketcap more than a year after it was launched. Nor would it have consistently widened its gap over Monero from a factor of 3 a few months ago to nearly 6 now.
As I explained earlier the (essentially fake imo) market cap is easily explainable by most of the supply being controlled by insiders. With enough control of existing supply, reduction of new supply, redirecting new supply from mining to existing holders via PoS masternodes, etc., you can make the price and therefore "reported" market cap anything they want.
Unless there are outsiders willing to buy your holdings at the current price, the reported cap is meaningless, and I don't believe there are. I will acknowledge I can't prove that, but will will see how it plays out. You can't play supply games forever, though historically such schemes have gone on for a very long time on occasion.