Ethereum's "hype" is working hand in hand with development, partnerships, projects, and the fact it is for a while now the leading project in the blockchain / cryptocurrency scene. It is not the same type of hype that bitcoin and all other projects are experiencing and you know it. It is based in facts, tangible projects and real people from real companies investing and building on this technology. And you know it, wether you like it or not.

Now, there's a chance they won't achieve everything ( developers, community, etc ) they aim for, but that wouldn't come as a big surprise, since they're doing something that wasn't done before.
Bottom line is, ethereum project and everything it involves dapps/contracts/projects/partnerships/development community and a whole huge fucking ecosystem, is moving forward at a very fast pace. And you want it to die because you cannot rival it, and you know it.

Regarding ICOs, one of the aims of my project that is different from Ethereum is that via the distribution model, I intend (i.e. hope to) provide a way for the derivative "smart contract" (or apps) projects to monetize their business model without creating a useless token and ICO lie. I am attempting to change the entire paradigm to not only a legal but also a viable one. @Skalpell although you make reasonable arguments in some respects, you seem to have a blindspot on the fact that these ICO tokens are completely unrealistic in that the world won't be using 100s of colored coins with a separate coin for each "smart contract" or app. The world will rally around one or at most a few leading units-of-exchange and units-of-account. The ICO model is not viable long-term. It is a FOMO delusion that works for now because speculators haven't yet learned that 100s of tokens isn't going to work.