The only reason Bitcoin is more valuable then other altcoins is first mover advantage. It's the truth if you compare bitcoin to a lot of alt coins on the technical side Bitcoin is lacking heavily. If the Protocol was updated to do something more like a lot of altcoins do I feel this is what would truly make the Bitcoin price sky rocket.
It appears to me the only benefit that you get from first mover advantage is the network effect, and the network effect alone can be used to account for the value to date by applying
Metcalfe's Law .
That said,
spin-offs allow innovative alts to leverage Bitcoin's network effect.
Rather than put all the innovation in Bitcoin it's more practical to distribute the risk and and reward and leverage the Bitcoin network which represents the most effective distribution of crypto coins to date.
Bitcoin will always be the one, but free market innovation will find solutions to problems Bitcoin can't solve. So given the opportunity for an infinite number of alts, creating a launch cost that leverages innovation and not wealth is the only way alts will grow, but they don't take market away from Bitcoin but add to the overall effect.