To me, the differences between bitcoin and litecoin seem superficial. They have a different number of total coins, but that just affects the exchange rate, you just divide by a different number when converting a price from USD to BTC/LTC. The blocks come faster, but you need to wait for more blocks to get the same confirmational surety, so you end up waiting just as long anyway. The difference in algorithm is no difference to me, since that is all under the hood so to speak, until one or the other is cracked they are the same to a user.
That's my impression too, no real benefit to litecoin over BTC propper. It's great to keep alternative networks and technologies alive though as redundancy. But I can see merchants and services wanting to standardize around one network eventually, and right now that looks to be bitcoin.