Vitalik do have some form of influence on the Ethereum blockchain through Ethereum Foundation but he has little to do with as it's already being taken care by thousands of volunteering ethereum enthusiast developers that his death would have little to no effect on Ethereum. It's one of the best thing about ethereum when comparing to its competitors.

Undoubtedly cross chain platform would work as an effective way to bridge different sectors and priorities as we are moving to a diverse crypto future.
Not only would they be a way to exchange value and contracts, they also would be the front face of blockchain technology. Like browsers at current for web pages and scripts.

10 year is a very long time for crypto and in 10 years time you'd see many of the current coins dying and new coins replacing these coins as the most used or one with most profit. If you insist on holding, buying a profit burned token from an established company would be the best bet. For example the popular BTC pool and the largest one for BCH, ViaBTC is holding an ICO.

I too believe its the incapability of Ethereum blockchain that's driving the decrease in price of it. The transaction delay and cost are on rise and the blockchain is not being able to handle the increasing number of dapps and smart contract related transactions that are forcing people to find and alternative.
About the review of contract creation term, it would undermine the ethics ethereum stands on. Every apps and contract are to be looked as simple user of the blockchain. You can't ban a user to ease the blockchain rather they should focus on improving on their side.

There are several of them that can make a difference. To mention few,
Electroneum has established itself as a prominent coin and is still rising. Many of the analyst had predicted this and it came true.
NEM is another must watch coin as it's becoming more popular than XLM or NEO as a token platform.
CET with it's new announcement is becoming a great way of being a part of a renowned company and have sure profit.

The number of successful ICOs have decreased folds than a year ago and investors had became selective when it comes to their profit.
There are projects that are being fully funded and even before the end of the ICOs.
If a good project is failing to achieve it's cap, its either due to poor presentation or ineffective advertising.

It's also about the number of transactions for the both coins. Ethereum is transacted in the largest number while bitcoin transaction are a fraction of it.
Ethereum is of course a better when it comes to fast transactions, transacting more than bitcoin per secoind. but the number of transactions are huge in Ethereum than in Bitcoin which leads to larger queuing period for Ethereum than bitcoin.

Yes it will.
Everything that comes to exist does cease to exist in some period of time. Even the earth would vanish some day. The question is how soon.
ETH is a new generation coin which is still in development and has already achieved large success being the most transacted coin of current time.
In my opinion, ETH would be here for at least a century before being replaced by something else.

Like we need every type of people in the society, we need diversity in crypto market.
Crypto market largely is speculation and manipulation. You need to get a buyer to sell whether it be in rising market or a falling one.
You can have profit only if you find someone who is going to have a loss. One mans profit is another mans loss here.

ETH is performing poorer. A good ICO is yielding x10 in a year time.
So it would be a good option to invest your ETH in an ICO token. But you should be extra cautious about choosing one.
Refer to popular ICOs on ico rating sites. Look for their Announcement in the forum, facebook and twitter account. Watch for the involvement of users and response of the ID operators. Look at the white paper and the practicality of the project and at last decide for yourself.

It's still the same but Ripple is in its crest while ETH on it's trough. So the ranking is temporary but in long run it would depend on how the two coins would perform. Both of them are actively developed and are in larger supply than bitcoin. While ripple's supply is limited and has constrains on its development, ETH is much more flexible.

ETH is the only working and dependable side chain platform. It's decentralized and not controlled by anyone making it a transparent platform.
Many of the so called competitor are still on their early phase and it would take them a lot of time to gain the trust and popularity  ETH has.
ETH would soon establish itself is the number one coin by marketcap.

If you would look at the trend for the last 5 years, it's no surprise to predict that.
But there are some limitations on how much a token or coin rise as the total capital in the world doesn't grow that way. It don't even double every year.  
So there's no way for all of the mushrooming coins to rise in price. If we want that rise in 10 years, most of the coin must die leaving less than 1K coins on the market.

Popular channel Visual Politik covered cryptocurrency and ICOs and presented Switzerland to be the first to regulate ICOs issuing through its land.
Unlike other local governments, Switzerland is not banning ICOs and not letting them operate scams like some tax heavens. Switzerland is the country with a big plus on it's flag.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktya6_AmuBk

Everyone know the market conditions and the need for ICOs to extend their time frame to get as much investments.
But what doesn't helps both the investors and the issuers is the lack of transparency. Most of the ICOs are faking their investment and are wasting much more money on sponsoring celebrities for ads rather than working and interacting with the investors.

Distributing funds in different options is always a good idea. We would not want to get stuck when a or some of them have problem or delays.
People would find is easier to have currencies fixed to the fiat they are used to.
And one day I hope these fiat fixed crypto would replace the need of forex as we have now.

Last year many new investors came into the crypto market. They invest in each and every ICOs, speculated and manipulated the price for most to get a profit while latter investors left with holding useless tokens. That scenario is now hurting the current ICO market.
But even in such time, good ICO project are funding well and investors are profiting from it. The term good depends on the perspective but can largely be summed up to few choices when researched about.

Patience is the key when you are in panic. Panic buying or selling would lead you to bankruptcy.
But the patience of holding a coin for years on ever rise and fall can't be called as a wise decision.
The key to success remains in buying in low price/buying good projects in ICOs and selling when you have good profits.

Yes it's the new standard for a crypto exchange.
Most of the coins issued by the exchanges are both a way to redistribute the profit of the exchange by dividend, burning or both as well as the fuel for the proposed dex.
The future is of dex and it's a easy bet to say the most successful exchanges at current time would have the best dex in the future. And a dex specific fuel would assure a ever present profit for the exchange and the investors.

1. Ethereum would be more than enough for you to trade but it would be a plus point if you broaden your trading options.
2. It's your choice but the general technique for profit in moving market applied to any other economic field works here.
3. USDT of course would be an essential tool while trading crypto. It is one of the reasons why day trading is still profitable.
4. Depends on your liquidity and interest. 0.1% taker and 0.1% maker fees are the highest you should pay.