Just because something is interesting does not mean that there is any value to it. I find guns interesting, but there's no value in saying that a, for example, HK416 is more interesting than an AR-15 or something along those lines. If I said that there is a significant difference where one or the other has a major advantage, as a big name in the field, then that has a lot more bearing than just saying that something is an "interesting alternative". That's the art of speaking in vague terms.
Exactly, bitcoin is not the most anonymous coin out there but the coins that have anonymity as their main focus have many other problems that are not small, many people complain about the fees, the speed of confirmations and the lack of scalability of bitcoin however a coin like Monero has scaling issues that makes bitcoin scaling issues to look like not a big deal.