Naming is extremely important to an altcoin's success. PPCoin is the most innovative altcoin since namecoin, and offers true potential benefits over Bitcoin, which cannot be said for any other altcoin, unless the minor/dubious benefit of shorter block times is counted. I believe one of the main reasons PPCoin has failed to gain popularity is its name.
Litecoin was Fairbrix with a better name, a better launch, and better marketing. No one uses Fairbrix now.
It's hard to say. I can agree that litecoin has good marketing and lots of people bought into the premise that the move of bitcoin into gpu then asic would give litecoin a future. Although looking at it, it's still not even 1% of bitcoin. And ppcoin wasn't doing too bad, it already reached parity with devcoin in terms of market cap.
The main reason I see why altcoins are lagging too much behind in market is that they don't have much more things to offer than bitcoin already does. With ripple on the scene things are certainly changing a bit, because ripple potentially has more things to offer.
ppcoin brought innovations to the table, but in order for market to accept it, it still needs to offer immediate benefits over bitcoin (not just some vague concerns that bitcoin could run into trouble 20 years later).
The main thing about a brand name is easy for people to remember. I think ppcoin passes this test. That's just my opinion. Like I said, dwelling on this issue is unwise given our resources. I cannot spend a couple months of work on a renaming project, at the same time potentially causing confusions down the road. So the decision has been made and let's give this topic a rest.
