DMD is on my top 5. I agree with the community being a big part of the popularity.
It also helps to have a rep present to answer questions or concerns.
The only downside I have experienced is discontinuing mining. I love the environment and all, but I do miss those days...
You can mine via DMD multipool. Nicehash is down but as far as I see, it ll be back online during this weekend. Mining the most profitable coin to mine and exchanging it for DMD would be the best strategy for miners anyhow, even if DMD Diamond retained PoW mining.
So, use multipool or some other algo switching miner, mine the most profitable coin and get yourself DMD Diamond. That is my advice to miners.