I've actually ended up using litecoin almost exclusively in my trading against other alt coins. I started off with btc/usd only, then started trading btc/ltc, then ltc/nxt and back, and then to mintcoin/btc but recently I've found better opportunity in mnt/ltc and been able to increase my stake nicely.

I like litecoin. I'm finding I don't mind using several coins. I just wish there was more stuff I could spend them on. There's someone developing a service that's supposed enable spending of several cryptos on Amazon. If that comes through I think it will really enhance the perception of utility and value of cryptos in general.