ether won't die, but it can be knocked down a few pegs.
If ether's failure is a big reason for their large decline, due to smart contract issues, bloated blockchains, and other crap (dao hack, etc)

then the only smart replacement would be NEM. That doesn't mean that the market would see it that way, because NEM's marketing team sucks.. but it can do smart contracts, namespaces, mosaics, public and private blockchains, and soon will be re-released in C++ (catapult) Not to mention that once catapult is released, it will be thoroughly tested and vetted. It will be released for the private blockchains first, then public later.. I'm excited because it really can/will be able to do soo much. But it all hinges on IF it can manage to catch on, which is no sure thing.