I understand OP is a busy man, but this is biased and [EDIT - missing "not"] not researched properly.
The classical altcoins do not offer anything relative to Bitcoin, except maybe a different hashing algorithm. An important thing to remember is that there is no long-term market niche for two coins with the same algo. The hashing power of the larger coin is constantly threatening to destroy the smaller one. Even if that does not happen, there are network effects in play that favor the larger coin and suppress the smaller.
There's at least several features in few of the alts which offer something interesting that Bitcoin is lacking.
However you look at it, if there is an interesting feature worth exploring and further development - that's what should be done, from many angles - first rule of progress in any technology.
There's more, but I just stopped on this.
Nothing to be taken away from Bitcoin - it is and it'll be cryptographic currencies king for some years to come, but progress has to be made.