It really is ridicuous, a bunch of script-kiddies and wanna-bes just copying-pasting and calling themselves developers.  Such an embarassment.  The only alt-coins with any hope:
Litecoin: Added scrypt, the first to increase confirmation time, had first mover advantage to get critical mining mass. 
PPCoin: The first Proof-of-work coin, though has not really caught on. 
Novacoin: This copycat combined litecoin and PPCoin and it actually had a chance.  Except the "developer" was a total scumbag, lied about pre-mining, bribed the exchanges and lost all credibility.  Still trades at 0.35-0.4 NVC/BTC, though pretty illiquid. 
eMunie: the most interesting new one, not yet released.  Totally different codebase, not just a copy/paste hack job like most the others.  Still, it's use of "interest" to early adopters is very ponzi-like and really will only harm the currency in the long-run.  Looks though like it will not be "pre-mined" and have an open, pre-announced launch which is refreshing from most the other sh*tcoins.