It's true that FTC have stagnated since the last period of glory and high values. It's however by no means dead yet.
I believe that the biggest mistake we've done in the FTC community so far is (as many have pointed out before) to believe that FTC will just magically step out of the LTC and BTC shadow. Of course this hasn't happened, and the still active members in the community have realized this now.
There's a new algo around the corner and a couple of (imho) interesting projects being discussed. Will these be the factors that take FTC out from the shadows? It's hard to tell if it's enough. But I'm willing to bet that we'll at least see a rise in value when the new algo lands.
FTC is very much alive, we've however taken a lot of damage by not doing anything at all really, and lost a lot of community members in the process. That's a mistake we're not doing again

so...let the trolling and mockery of my beliefs begin
