I think you need to add Vertoe taking over Cachecoin as a threat. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=400389.2300 He has intimate knowledge of DASH, is an excellent developer, and is really angry with Evan. Those three variables make them a huge threat to DASH in my opinion.
Certainly a competitor, a threat? I wouldn't say that. In my opinion, Vertoe has too myopic a view on cryptos. I think Evan's vision has shown itself to be quite amazing, and, though we have had some scaffolding to help us along the way, they've eventually been pulled, Things like closed source while DS was finalized (and yet it's been improved immensely since then) and our current reference node, which is one of the first things that they're trying to decentralize. Vertoe was complaining about how DASH seems to be acting like a corporation. But listen to Andreas Antonopoulos talk about "Decentralized Autonomous Corporations" and don't tell me you don't get a tingle up and down your spine! This blockchain technology isn't only limited to currencies you know!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGSePa9GwxANow I may be wrong about how Vertoe feels, I only know what I read from him. But I see something so much bigger here, and it's only a matter of time before the development team sees this, or actually, they've undoubtedly thought of these things already.