I think what makes the alt currencies silly is their transparency in that they only exist because people are trying to get in "early" on something like bitcoin in an effort to make the same money that BTC early adopters did. Thus far, none of these alt currencies offer anything that bitcoin can't in the near future.

So basically you have a bunch of people who are driven by greed. I mean, might as well start investing in Testnet too, right? What's the conversion rate there?