It is a pre-historic attempt at a privacy-enhanced cryptocurrency, where cryptonote is the 21th century.
Something built on true and tested cryptography and technology that is (or will be) as good as anyone might need for any practical purposes vs. something new that's not stood the test of time yet and with unsolved (and potentially unsolvable) issues.
No cryptocurrency is in the "stood-the-test-of-time" bracket just yet... All of them have their challenges, not least of which is mass adoption.
Selling the concept of 'masternodes' as part of a decentralised currency, will be a hard sell and sounds like an oxymoron to me (as a lay person). A solution where masternode owners profiteer out of people's desire for an anonymous transaction vs. a solution that is inherently anonymous... I think I know which is likely to win out in the end.