Whether the answer is ZeroCoin or something else, I think that we have seen that there are enough problems already with the Bitcoin protocol and approach to mining that something else may be necessary to protect a buy in from loss due to government efforts to seize or trace funds, scams, and volatility.  There's no question in my mind that there's a tremendous need for an anonymous digital currency.  My investment in the protocol is to push the bleeding edge.  Get more people into this to try it out, find out what works and what doesn't, then

Ethereum is, in my mind, a great evolutionary step forward in digital currency.  However, putting everything behind the Bitcoin brand name is a strategy that I don't entirely agree with.  For the time being, I think that we need a whole marketplace of altcoins that employ and different technology and different ideas.