$1000 ? never ever again. The game is over. Get over it. Bitcoin is just a medium of wealth transfer. Nothing more. It just depends when you put your wealth in it. At prices above $100 it is heavily overvalued given its use.
OK...
Most of the altcoins do have improvements over bitcoin
So which altcoin would you recommend. Terracoin?
Haha good find !!! Bitcoin is just more popular than the alts... that´s all. From a protocol perspective the alts are offering more....(if this is good or bad depends on market sentiment). Altcoins are currently, (unfortunatly) a derivative of Bitcoin. If Bitcoin go down they go down more (in USD value)
Most altcoins are pegged to BTC prices, and even those which are traded in USD are following BTC prices. From a USD perpective they are just leveraged instruments of BTC prices. A lot of money can be made on the swings down, selling early enough on the rebound.
I would stay away from all crypto for a moment and let the dust settle. If you want to do something, then short BTC or alts.... can you even short alts ?
The Gox situation is very unique, and even people like me, with a couple of years exchange experience and BTC experience are struggling to put the all the pieces of the puzzle together for the right decission.
But coming back to your question... which altcoin I do prefer ? I like Litecoin as there are some sites where you can spend then (big difference to all other alts, which are just there for speculation/making the creators rich). Let´s say, I will like Litecoin again at around 20-30% of its current price....
Apart of this, all the other ones can be exchanged for each other. If NVC, NMC, LTC, XRP or whatever, the party is over for now. All we can do is wait till all the pain has gone and the trend has reversed
I guess I have not answered your question to the extend you were hoping.
Disclosure: I do not hold any LTC, BTC, XRP, DGC, TRC, NMC, NVC, or other coins. I am short BTC and long GoxBTC.... lets see how this trade goes...