The last time I checked, the median fee was somewhere around $2.40. A few days back, the range was between $5 and $6. And I agree that for smaller transactions this can be very significant. But in your case, you have taken a wrong approach to resolve the issue. Converting to another coin is not the solution. What will happen if the coin goes down by 20% in a few hours (trust me, it happens to a lot of altcoins)?