Doesn't matter what I think, and as you said "people who understand the value of bitcoin". Newbies don't understand shit, but, they do understand metrics like market cap, so it will hurt bitcoin. If bitcoin is not number one on the shitty marketcap metric that will hurt bitcoin adoption plain and simple.
What do the advertisers say? "you don't need a good product, just good marketing"
In that case, bitcoin was fucked from day one. 21 million coins for the entire world economy was never going to work. Most world citizens (>99%) have never had $8750 at one time in their lives. They will never buy bitcoin at that price. They will buy Ripple for $1 instead.
EDIT: Yes, I know they are divisible but the average idiot can't comprehend that.
The real problem though is that the idiots don't understand the importance or decentralization, lack of a central authority, deflationary monetary system, developer talent, trustless, and so on. Bitcoin is the best coin without a doubt in my opinion. But, how in the fuck can we get mass adoption, when most people still think the media, and governments are the good guys. Crypto will get mass adoption, but, I fear that it will be a bullshit coin supported by the banks, media, and governments.
I agree, I think the coins that will do the best with the coming mass adoption will be the ones who have the largest number of coins in circulation so they seem cheap to the idiots. Why buy a bitcoin when you can buy 10 ETH or 8000 XRP for the same price? Luckily, big institutional money will still flow into bitcoin.