How can it be with all the "shilling" and "spamming"? One cannot have it both ways.  

First, I am not American, if by American you mean a citizen or resident of the United States. To answer your other questions.

The "official" versions are close to nine months old, and require upwards of 7 GB of RAM to run. In order to get the latest versions one actually needs to compile from source. Then Monero only requires about  60 MB of RAM and has a host of other very significant under the hood  improvements. Furthermore in both cases it is a command line interface. To use my real estate analogy the foundation is very solid but the bathroom stinks really bad. This is why one can purchase XMR at the current prices. There are other coins that have very serious problems in the "foundation" (out of sight out of mind), but the "bathrooms" are clean and beautiful. They are also more expensive.

I have been around enough to realize that 1) Freshly painted rotten wood actually sells very well in real estate. 2) A freshly painted rusted used car also sells very well, as long as the rust is hidden. Caveat Emptor.

Edit: The devs have been working very hard building a very solid foundation and cannot be bothered with "cleaning up the bathroom".

It is not whether or not the accusations have merit, but rather that they serve to protect the early adopters who got in cheap, after Monero moons. This of course applies only in the event that Monero does moon. So I actually consider the accusations a form of insurance.  

One interesting side effect of all of these accusations of shilling and spamming directed at Monero supporters is that should Monero take of, none of the Monero early adopters could be accused of having an
"unfair" advantage.

Edit: As for the lack of an official GUI, this actually makes Monero very attractive to an investor because this causes Monero to have the "right things wrong with it". I learned about this concept in real estate investing where a house with a faeces encrusted bathroom and a solid foundation can be a much better buy than a house with a beautiful clean bathroom, and a foundation about to collapse.

The biggest issue that I have had with Bitcoin going back to 2011 / 2012 is the 1 MB fixed blocksize limit and the lack of an adaptive blocksize limit. I have recently come to the conclusion that this is closely related to securing the coin after the emission runs out; namely with just transaction fees. The latter very likely needs a tail emission.

So what POW coins have addressed this issue:

Full Solution:
1) Adaptive blocksize limits and tail emission Monero (XMR)

Only partial solution:
1) Tail emission only with no adaptive blocksize limits: Dogecoin (DOGE)
2) Adaptive blocksize limits only with no tail emission: Bytecoin (BCN). Bytecoin has a serious  premine / ninjamine issue but one can consider Dashcoin (DSH) which is a clone of Bytecoin without the premine / ninjamine. Most other cryptonote coins have adaptive limits with no tail emission (except Monero, above, which is a full solution).

Edit 1: Dashcoin is not to be confused with DASH (Formally known as Darkcoin, which has inherited both problems from Litecoin)
Edit 2: I found out about Monero back in 2014 because I was researching the fixed blocksize issue in Bitcoin. Only after I was satisfied that Monero did not have the fixed blocksize issue did I start to even consider Monero.

Space heating. It could also include heating such things as swimming pools, greenhouses, even domestic hot water. Pot is not a good example since it is typically done in a clandestine manner and the need is more for light rather than heat alone. In a jurisdiction where it is legal a greenhouse full of pot could work. The reason space heating works is because the heat only has more value than the electricity consumed becasue it is cheap to distribute electricity but next to impossible to distribute heat.

While the block reward is still in place there are many reasonable solutions that are "good enough". For example the quadratic penalty function in Cryptonote (Monero) or even relying on the probalility of orphan blocks to create a fee market that deters spam. The difficulty is that this blocksize debate has raised an even more fundamental question: How does one secure the network after the emission runs out? Monero has solved this with a fixed tail emission, Dogecoin also has a tail emission and so do many POS coins (Peercoin for example); however this is a non starter for Bitcoin because of the social covenant. Furthermore a fixed blocksize may even not provide for a fee market to develop, in the absence of a block reward, as the current "stress tests" are demonstrating. The small block crowd are by the way also making some very valid points.

The best I have seen to date is BIP 100 with a 50% threshold, and much higher starting limits; however this is dependent on external market factors (other crypto currencies, fiat payment methods etc.) to keep the "mining cartel" from raising the fees with no limit. I have been researching this issue for over three years and unfortunatly the more I look into this, the more discouraged about the future of Bitcoin I become.

What is needed here is a solution that allows for a dynamic blocksize limit that will respond to market forces allowing a fee market to develop, in the absence of block rewards. I am not saying that such a solution is not possible, I have simply not found it. Pending a solution, a bear I remain.

In many countries there are no laws requiring a seller or a store to accept cash. What exists are legal tender laws that in effect force a creditor to accept cash for a debt or not be able to enforce the debt in court.

Edit: There may be exceptions where stores are required to accept cash and Denmark may actually be one.

This is not entirely true. Denmark is not banning cash, what they are doing is giving stores the right not to accept cash. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/14/no-wallet-no-worries-denmark-considering-cash-free-shops Big difference. In fact given that the popular proprietary debit solution charges a flat 1% to the merchants, this could actually create a market for crypto currencies in person transactions where non existed before.

Also Denmark is a wealthy country with an advanced welfare state. This means that there are very few poor people; the market segement least likely to use debit cards, credit cards or their smartphone app equivalents.

I agree. The first fundamental problem with Bytecoin is the 82% premine / ninjamine. The question as to: Is Bytecoin a premine? (the most likely) or a ninjamine? (the position of many Bytecoin supporters) has been discussed at length in the following thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.0.

Well it has not been resolved since this issue was first raised in 2010. Furthermore the current climate in the community is way less conducive to a resolution that it was before. I have been following this issue for well over three years.

Normally this would have been very bullish for Bitcoin; but the 1 MB blocksize limit makes it at best neutral. Seriously how many transactions can 1.3 billion people generate even if only a very small fraction of them were to use Bitcoin? Why does anyone seriously expect that many transactions can fit in 1 MB blocks every 10 min?  Do the math.

I voted never simply because of the 1 MB blocksize limit. This currently prevents any growth.

It does not help that Bitcoin is limited by protocol to close to 2 transactions per second, by the 1 MB blocksize limit. So it does not matter how many banks decide to accept Bitcoin, Bitcoin simply cannot grow.

Bitcoin currently has a serious long term fundamental problem; namely the 1 MB blocksize limit that prevents any meaningful growth of the Bitcoin network. The upside potential is actually capped at close to the current transaction rate by the protocol while there remains a very significant downside risk. The risk vs return ratio is makes very little sense at current prices. Until the blocksize issue is resolved in a manner that allows for the Bitcoin network to grow, I remain a bear.

Out of curiosity. What needs are not being met?

It is not just about charity. I am talking about transactions, including for profit commerce, anywhere in the world where:

1) At least one of the participants has an income below the US poverty line. 11,770 USD for single person or 24,250 USD for a family of four. http://aspe.hhs.gov/2015-poverty-guidelines
2) It is not an in person transaction. (Cash is very much still king for in person transactions involving poor people)

I am not saying this is the only market but rather that this is a huge if not the largest market for p2p crypto currency.

Edit: In many underdeveloped parts of the world this is the vast majority of the population and many people whose income is below the US thresholds would not even be considered "poor" by local standards.

http://www.ncix.com/category/hard-drives-8a-109.htm

Edit: It may not be very cost effective to buy anything under 1 TB

This is not an uncommon experience for many people. Same here. Why would I use Bitcoin for a domestic payment when I can get 1-2% cash back by using a credit card? The reality is that more often than not those who are involved with crypto - currency as: developers, investors / speculators, miners, investors or employees of crypto currency businesses etc., are not the primary market for the use of crypto currency as a payment method. The same online payment that "costs" me -1%, with a credit card can cost someone else 100% or more in fees.

Fill a market need that is not being met well by existing central ledger based payment systems.

1) The payer, the receiver or both are poor
2) The payment is not in person and even better the payment should cross an international boundary.