The dev has laid out a plan (whitepaper) which looks good to my non-expert eyes.
Heh. What. That's item #1. The whitepaper?
The whitepaper lays out the proposed development of a project. I am unsure what else would be the major factor in deciding to back a project or not other than the way it is to be developed and the planed route which this will take. This should of course be follow by a roadmap  which would spell out when the item in the whitepaper should be implemented and a more detailed explanation of the course ahead.  I would consider this the most important item and as such I stand by my decision to have this listed as No1 in not only this but any project that I am involved with either financially or with time commitments
They has kept updating on a daily bases.
Very poorly.
At the time of my original statement there had been daily updates with details of what was happening.
They has several features to implement that have potential.
So far, bare promises.
Of course they are promises. Is this not the reason we are investing in a Altcoin that has just started.  If they were more then promises then we would be investing in the coin that has already implemented these features but at a hugely inflated price than the one we invested in this coin originally
It has been implied that RetroShare is on-board (who already operate an implementation of some of what was in the white paper)
Still don't know anything about them. Do you know what kind of company they are? What kind of financial balls they have? I sent them an email and they haven't responded.
I did a general goggle search on them and read this along with a couple of other articles. I did not bother calling up their trading history or do a more detailed financial assessment on them as this would have been time and monetarily expensive and I did not believe that I could have gained any information that would have warranted the expense.  I am unsure why if you require this information you do not acquire it yourself?. We are dealing with emerging technologies and companies that may not have extensive finical histories and I believe this is where innovations come from. I cant comment on why they have not replied to you (when did you email them?)
The statements by the dev match with what Retroshare already do
Keyword:"Statements".
Same as point 2 show me a coin that had more to offer at this stage of development?
There has been no undue hyping of the coin by the dev
Hype is a tool used at the opportune moments. This doesn't mean anything.
To say a statement does not mean anything means that if the statement was reversed then it would also mean nothing
(rephrased = There has been unwarranted hyping of the coin by the dev). This is a comment that should cause concern.
No premine, No IPO and No instamine = A lot of work for the dev if a simple p&d was desired.
A lot of work for free money?
The finest example of an Oxymoron I have ever heard. Free money should never be a lot of work or it is no longer free  I was implying by this statement that there is easier ways.
There is a team working on it and not just one person.
How could you possibly know that other than hearsay?
All we have is hearsay with a dev who uses a newbie account. Check out Judgecoin if you want a dev who puts himself out there
Coding takes time, Testing takes longer (I'm not in for the quick profit).

There is of course no way that I can tell if this coin will succeed or not. If I was gifted with such an ability I would be on a beach somewhere sipping a cocktail as the sun descends behind the horizon instead of in this forum .

These are the reasons that I have chosen this project to back and while it is not the only one I am backing (I am backing 2 others) it has been the most expensive and holds the best prospect of a good return in the mid-term.