I think it is a bit early for blaming people Hazard.  From what I have seen there were no issues with the 1.4 version of dogecoin which was running the Luckycoin code.  When they upgraded to the Litecoin code in 1.5, it appears several mining pools encountered problems.  It is quite possible that these performance problems that caused the pools to revert to 1.4 exist in Litecoin too.  In retrospect perhaps they should have realized the potential problems of running 2 different databases (BerkeleyDB and LevelDB) and made the upgrade mandatory or issued a 1.4 fix then, especially given bitcoin had the same issue, but they probably weren't aware so many pools had reverted.

The devs are working on the reasons why 1.5 is slow for pools,  but otherwise I think we can consider this fixed.

Is it just another pump-and-dump to stay away from?

it's basically a fast paced version of Bitcoin.  so u can watch the block halving happen right before your eyes and learn how Bitcoin works.  to me that is innovative

LOT Coinis new cryptocurrencies in it's infancy stage, but is quickly thriving in the online.

hazard my old friend. Good to see you.

Bitbar does not have Transaction Malleability issues and I would not be surprised if Bitbar surpasses bitcoin in 2014