Yeah, you are right with all your said here. Those that invested in Bitcoin will have little worries compared to those that invested in alt or meme coin because they hardly recovers their previous high, as you have said already.
Bitcoin is the safest option in crypto investment. Sure, it can't be compared with altcoins. Many people only want to invest in Bitcoin only because they realize the lower level of the risk. Some of them don't want to struggle with their mentality by choosing altcoins.
Out of 100 alt and meme coin in the market, it's only like 14 of them or less that have the capacity to recover to their previous high, because investors are not that confident in them to put so much money on them during the bull season, unlike Bitcoin that has gained the confidence and trust of most investors. What most alt investor usually does is by taking a gambling on many of them an look if they can make a fortune from any of them that pumps, that's why I believe that it's more of gambling than investment.
I'm not sure how many altcoins can survive among the 100 altcoins. It can be 10% or below 10% of 100 altcoins. The point is very small percentage of the altcoins that can survive and grow well in the market after a long time period. So, I can agree with you that investors tend to gamble in altcoins, specifically for random altcoins and new altcoins. However, investors are still investing (not gambling) if they choose top altcoins with strong fundamentals such as BNB, ETH, SOL, or HYPE. It is because these altcoins have bigger chance to keep growing well in the future.