It's not about technical prowess, it's about the network effect. The current "forced" emigration of GPU-miners from Bitcoin to Litecoin is currently distributing this currency into more pockets. Litecoin is developing simply because more people own Litecoins. People don't really care which currency is better, as long as you use it for economic purposes, it's good enough.

The total power of network hash rate is evidently important, the higher the better. But the distribution of this hash rate is also important. 100 people with 1% of the network is better than 10 people with 10% each. If Bitcoin can, in a indirect way, keep the GPU-miners around, it helps this distribution of hash rate. GPU-miners are going to flock to Litecoin anyway, and I think that Bitcoin need to keep them around. Being able to mine the BTC back-up is a pretty nice deal for BTC.