DarkCoin / Dash is older tech, not decentralised, optionally private (which means effectively not private at all) and not fungible. It has a transparent-by-default blockchain and just uses a version of Coinjoin as a mixer. Talk about old tech, there you go - but you surely know this? Do you really trust Evan, would you want one of his masternodes?
Er... for years Dash was always above Monero on Coinmarketcap. Now Monero looks in the rear view mirror. You should maybe check up before you make assertions that are out of date. As for your admission that Dash's Masternode system is (as you put it) 'not optimal' - thanks for acknowledging one fatal flaw at least. I guess you would not want a masternode, then. Also your appreciation of Monero's 'solid tech' is noted.
I see this masternode bashing come up regularly from the Monero camp, please show me evidence of any dash private sent transaction has ever been compromised/deanonymized.
Yea it never happened and because of the masternode concept anonymity of old transactions is also much more likely to be guaranteed in the future.
For example, the Monerolink drama, those transactions are still affected, the people that made those transactions can still be affected. In dash this is unlikely to happen because the anonymization happens on the masternodes and is not stored on the blockchain that, if compromised, leaks all this data. The transaction registration and anonymization happen separately, which is a smart move. Now this system just has to be redesigned to be more robust against potential/theoretical attacks, which is what Loki does for example.
That is; decentralisation, no premine, strong community support, excellent active development and actual proven real-world use cases.
Some premine and specially mining rewards going to developers is alright i think, after all, they don't need to work for nothing, the way i see it it incentivizes dedication to and quality of the project. Masternodes does not mean centralization, it is part of the entire network that enables and incentivizes certain functionality, there can be a lot of masternodes (decentralized!)