Honestly, people's opinions on bitcointalk is probably the worst place to go for advice on if ICOs are worth your time or not...but here's my opinion anyway.
The days of short term flipping for huge gains are really coming to an end.
Investing in an ICO that you believe will be successful long term is risky.
...in the end, hasn't it always been better to just get more bitcoin?
Of course investing in long-term ICOs is risky. That's why the profits are so high.
The same has been true for VC in the past, which is the traditional form raising money for start-ups.
Diversification and utmost care in choosing projects is the key and will be rewarded with larger rewards than any other investment vehicle could offer. Most ICOs will fail, but that just makes it easier to pick successful ones. Granted it takes a large amount of time and effort to do this, but nothing ever comes free.
On the other hand, gamblers who ride hypes will just lose their money, so for those people it would've indeed been best to just stick with Bitcoin.