Based on the TA, short term ETH target is around 1k so I believe we will hit that mark either by the end of the year or around the end of January.
TA doesn't cover unexpected events like the cryptokitties fiasco though, so I wouldn't hold my breath for $1k before this gets solved.
We must not under estimate influence of cryptokitties on ETH price. Remember what happened on 12 June when world realised ETH blockchain can't even sustain an overhyped ICO like Bancor. Now we thought with the last fork when transactions became fast and cheap that ethereums' problems were solved. That's why ETH price reached all time high eventually. But now as more and more poeple get aware that ETH can't even handle simple game like the kitties, and that's still far away of being capable of sustaining the load of all the projects that are being built on it the price of ETH might crash considerably.
Is the exact opposite. ETH has (normally) more than twice the transaction then BTC. cryptokitties added a HUGE load and the Ethereum is still up&running. And with POW, not Casper.
On the paper we know other crypto has "better" technologies (more better, secure, scalable, etc).
In reality (not in whitepapers or twitter) ETH has proven to work, and POS is coming...