I'm curious why people think the (two) third party GUI wallets are so insufficient they are hurting the market. For comparison purposes, most Bitcoin users today use third party wallets such as Electrum (or web wallets -- also third party). I would expect this to be more normal than not as a coin matures.
1. Don't like
2. Don't trust
3. Don't know about
4. Can't get to work
5. Doesn't support preferred platform (the .NET one is Windows-only; supposedly the other one is cross platform, but I haven't tried it)
6. other?
I don't think the BitcoinQT wallet is one for the masses. As we can see now, that is more a hardcore wallet due to the space and interface (though it has gotten better).
(I prefer a light wallet like Electrum for a variety of reasons.)
For me, I wanted something that would install easily on my MAC. I am an ex IT guy and I couldn't install the simple wallet from source - I spent a few hours and just gave up trying to get it to run right. I did get it running by just double clicking on the downloaded files, and I did download the blockchain, etc. but I wanted something from source. Having something visual with more options for privacy and such is important imo.
A bigger reason though, is that I think we need something a bit more attractive, just to attract the average person AND keep up with other offerings (other coins). Feature sets are important. Comparing wallets will inevitably be a part of the selection process and if something like Cloak, Dark, etc. (even though INFERIOR) start to take the lead then the
average person will be none the wiser.
Just my perspectives and you made some good points, but I think we have to approach this from a
"common" user perspective, not expert or power user. I realize it is early in the game, so I don't mean to get ahead of ourselves but I feel we have to stay on top of things to be able to secure that #2 position, and we are a bit down the list, though technically a GREAT coin. So, sooner rather than later on the wallet is what I feel.
IAS