IMHO right now I think its better to still hold and make an invesment on ethereum rather than ethereum classic. Incoming fork, stable price, support from the community, lot of great token, smart contract thats all my reason I pickup ethereum for now.
For your information, ETC is the original ETH, Smart contracts and essentially everything are the same, ETC didn't reverse transactions after the theft, ETH foundation is a rogue foundation, Now some one is accumulating ETC and when they have enough they will start pumping. Whatever ETH can do ETC can do.I think that when the price of ETH goes up, the price of ETC will also go up, so holding ETC is also a good choice. I just bought ETC. 
You are wrong, ETC could only go up if people start using it for their smart contracts. When that happens $500 would be the 2018 ATH.