Question:
Let's say Dash passes Litecoin and is fighting for 1st place with Bitcoin, would it help or hurt Dash if it forks away from Bitcoin and become it's own separate coin?
I'm a tad confused - could you rephrase? Do you mean no longer relying on Bitcoin core?
I would guess that wouldn't happen since so much of the base code is standard and there isn't really a benefit to replacing stuff like older API's that are well known