]I'm not trying to be sanctimonious... but rather I have a _lot_ of respect for the really clever cryptosystem used in Bytecoin. It's one of the most interesting cryptographic techniques _actually deployed_ that I've since basically bitcoin itself (there are a lot of other neat ideas, few have made it to actual use). If this were tech that worked in Bitcoin it would have won pretty much the entirety of the coinjoin bounty hands down by my opinion. So I don't mean to dismiss the work that has been done in the forks, but it is really not on the same level as the actual invention here in my opinion (esp since bytecoin is not a fork of Bitcoin). Maybe in a couple years my opinion will be different. My view is also colored by my own position as a developer who took up the maintenance of Bitcoin after its author left, e.g. I'm inclined to discount the value of contributions similar to my own
Cryptonote's underlying cryptography does appear to be remarkably elegant in its implementation which is why I find all the related projects so exciting. Cryptography is not an area of mathematics in which I am particularly well-read, but the project was sufficiently intriguing to get me delving into some of the literature underlying their work and left me impressed. They do seem to have made one of the first real steps forward I would say in terms of bringing something genuinely new to an altcoin.
What do you make of the apparent schism between Cryptonote, which now appear to be the prime movers behind the technology, and the Bytecoin team? They make numerous allusions on their forum posts that there was disagreement in how Bytecoin was to be developed which led to the two teams splitting.
Btw there have been some good technical chats over on the Monero thread, so come take a look some time! (Ignore the rinse-repeat MRO/DRK trolling though.)