What are some of the outstanding challenges facing the Counterparty Protocol?

Not being able to escrow BTC. If this was solved effectively how much of an effect would that have??? I think it would be a very big deal (the DEx would be more useful than ever, for example) but I would like to hear the opinion of others.

No Smart Contracts live yet. This is only a matter of time.

Competitors - Ethereum and now Rootstock (http://www.rootstock.io/).

Anything else?