TerraCoin doesn't really change anything in the bitcoin chain except for the block rate and diff retarget rate. I don't think it serves any useful purpose except as a pump n' dump scheme.
It doesn't matter if it gets 51%'d now or not, it'll be dead in a month due to merged mining anyway.
It's a pointless fork.
As far as I can see, all other coins excluding Bitcoin are flawed even more than Bitcoin itself. Unless something much better emerges,
having "backup" Bitcoin chain is good idea.
It's not a backup if it is subject to the same risks. That's why IMHO ppcoin is the only bitcoin alternative which adds value: It experiments with a different network security model.
All chains add value if the people who set them up educate themselves about crypto currency. Just because one set of people have already done it all and told everyone, doesn't mean there isn't educational value for others in redoing their work all over again. I'm a working fashion photographer- my whole incentive to be hanging out on the computer learning code is Cryptocurrency. Otherwise I would be out with the models. Trust me. It might seem like a horribel choice to everyone else, but I'm getting my kicks like this. So be it. That has value.
What I think is the greatest deal with Terracoin is that developers are unknown. I hope it'll stay that way. Devs, don't go public, ever!
Use all means neccessary to stay anonymous. Don't fall for "fame / glory" bullshits, you'll expose yourself to those you don't wanna meet.
How is anonymity beneficial? People still need to revise code changes, since they never should just trust the developer blindly...
But that's the wonderful thing about open source- and Github. We see all the changes whenever they are made. I just went and checked the code myself to see the Checkpoint added. They can't "sneak" something in- it's all public and you're notified when a change is made and you can check it out yourself. I'm not downloading precompiled clients, i'm building from the Git Source. Something I didn't know how to do until the end of last week when I heard about terracoin and thought "I want to be first to start mining this! But I don't trust that the GUI isn't a wallet stealing trojan" So I spend a LONG weekend learning and built it from source. My first time. :-) So yeah- pointless chain? It's got value to me. Doesn't mean I will slave over it forever or make it my personal "BITCOIN" but I can take what I learn from this to my next project: perhaps a bitcoin one.