I think the more decentralized approach to a DAG, in addition to the inclusion of Proof of Work, was a missing piece of the puzzle that the crypto-space needed to be glued into place.  Too many of these DAG projects sacrifice decentralization for throughput and/or security in my opinion.  The number of users banging on the security of these systems is still low, even if the potential purse is large. Once more people enter the space and start testing the actual security of more and more projects we will see who takes their security and robustness seriously.