IXCoin just surpassed 9 Peta Hashes, higher than Devcoin (for now) and catching up to the coin that died: NameCoin. Once at number 2, iXCoin should be obviously the silver to Bitcoin's gold.
I would not call Namecoin dead. NameCoin = Platinum
http://www.legitcoinage.com/?p=90IXC may be more like Paladium (Less rare than Gold, but with more useful properties)
DVC would be more like Copper
I know NameCoin is not dead - I said it died, and it died massively.
For the purpose of mass adoption that makes it dead for any future mass adoption. Nobody will take a massive global risk on a coin with health issues or death history. So now we really only have Devcoin as a merge mined opponent.