There are plenty of fundamentally different coins, but putting money in on the basis of their technical merit is pointless. No one cares. There are coins that have been 51% attacked, rolled back, hacked, and they're all still chugging.
The only thing you need to understand is which one will grab the most hype and lets you get out in time and no one knows anything about that either. To 97% or more of people all of these coins are nothing more than three letters attached to number on an exchange that goes up or down.
I think that even those bad projects may somehow contribute. When suffering those 51% attacks we can see how a 51% works, what is can do, like an experiment.
Those shitcoins are, some of them, trying new technologies in a very risk way. If any of those new technologies is useful and it works, it may later on be applied to bitcoin...
Edit: Not saying that it is worth ivnesting in those projects. I am saying that those shitprojects can be good for bitcoin