Mining like hell doesn't drive the price up
We had this discussion already a month or two ago. I think we've had this discussion more than once.
It is important to understand that there needs to be some reason to demand the coin. Mining alone isn't it.
Perhaps it isn't important to understand what that reason was for Litecoin, since that is more or less ancient history and Litecoin is well on its way to irrelevance. But I think it is pretty clear what are the reasons driving demand for leading enhanced-privacy coins today.
I suggest you ask BCX about how mining at a loss for many months paid off for him with BTC ($3 to $1200) and LTC (<$1 to $30).
Hindsight being 20/20 sure. I mined Bitcoin at very low prices too. I don't feel like I was a genius for doing it. I just did it because it was interesting and likewise in hindsight it paid off. Plenty of things I've done because they were interesting did not pay off.