@ByronP can you look into QurarkCoin (QRK)? QRK is 9th largest cryptocoin and has decent volume of trades. It has one of the highest traded coins at BTC38- a top Chinese exchange. It has been added to most of the known altcoin exchanges except btc-e. There are lots of developments and projects going on. QRK has very active community and is growing very fast. It is one of better designed coin- purely CPU based, more secure (6 random hashes from 9 round of hashes), faster (30 sec) and has very interesting economics of coin distribution.
http://www.reddit.com/r/QuarkCoin/What is QRK?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrNnrvet7Aowww.qrk.cchttp://www.quarkfoundation.cc/