Echoing what some of the others have said, Waves seems promising. But nothing really is as versatile as Ethereum.

What I've found with Facebook ads and now Google is that you can advertise ICO projects as long as their not explicitly raising right now.

Either way, the highest quality ICOs should have good enough teams that they can actually generate PR from journalists. I'd expect lower quality ICOs to be the ones relying on advertising to bring in users.

As it's currently described I don't really see the point. However, celebrity coins could be a great way to engage a fan base.

For example if he occasionally raffled something off to coin holders or had dinner with a few of them, could be an interesting way to extend a social fan base.

If this takes off I could also see something like this being used to replace Omaze. In other words sell this coin to raise money for charity - sponsored by a celebrity.

That being said, I doubt GCOX's intention is to ever do something charitable.

These look great. What are some rules of thumb for separating the good and bad icos? There's got to be a lengthy post detailing that somewhere but I haven't come across it.

Definitely, but their airdrop + bounty seems like a free marketing campaign by spamming the forums here. I could see why that's valuable for them, but I think the legitimacy of the product is slightly reduced by them going to these lengths for exposure.

Edit: Just took a look at some of their airdrop stats and they're creating a really small but extremely active userbase. That's a great way to start out and points towards legitimacy.
https://blockstats.pw/deeponion/

So what makes exchanges like Airswap able to avoid doing KYC/AML?