Monero could be a competitor 6-12 months from now. They have a LOT of work to do before it's even usable by the average person. Also, there are many disadvantages to Monero, and at this point it isn't certain that they will be fixed.
I like many coins like Darkcoin, Monero, NXT, etc..just dont tell lies.
Monero only needs a GUI wallet and it's perfect. Truthfully, it has the best anonymity available through Ring Signatures, along with a team of 7 devs...
Other than the GUI wallet, there are no other things needed. Scaling/Bloating has been fixed through upgrading the pool software..since it was the pools sending out dust transactions that bloated the blockchain..
While Monero offers the best anonymity there is , Darkcoin also offers masternodes, which I think with their payouts, will be the standard for all Bitcoin based coins and may be a great incentive for mining as it takes 1000 coins out of the supply, which in turn drives the price up, making more people want to mine, a perfect cycle.