@lukestokes - Hats off to your practical viewpoint. Following sequence I have often observed in real world:

1. A hype is created about a utility or service
2. Hype causes a disconnect between perception and reality because of emotional biases created by peer pressure and/or factors such as greed. We tend to 'want to believe' everything that fuels our greed. We tend to term realistic analysis as negativity and brush it under the carpet.
3. The service or utility starts delivering and the price settles somewhere between emotionally driven perceived value and realistic value.

As you have said - if an existing utility or service exists in the same space/ parameters, then we should use it to keep ourselves sane. Bitshares and Steem are great examples.

I do not have too much experience of crypto yet but I think the basic principle I have stated above applies.

Thanks. Upvoted full.

Regards,