The market decided that Nxt's Exchange is better than Mastercoin's or Counterparty's:
well I think they are for completely different purposes and I am happy that nxt and xcp are doing extremly well. It is still early days for nxt and very very early days for xcp.
but I think regarding competition, nxt is competing against btc and especially etherium whereas xcp is competing against mastercoin.
anyway I expect some kind of niching and they will do all (maybe except msc) well