It's a good time to take a look at an OG coin that's sticking around. Originally, the unique selling point of Syscoin was to create an on-chain market where you could sell both physical and digital objects. Since such a market doesn't need servers, it should be cheap and uncensorable (not anonymous like the darknet though). You could buy home-made red-pepper sauce and such. It never became popular, I think it was underestimated.
I haven't used SYS in a few years, but it's a serious project with decent technology. Syscoin was the second chain to implement SegWit, they were early to wrap BTC and other currencies on their network, and for better scaling, they restarted the chain once or twice while keeping all balances the same. Chris P. Thomson is writing a book about its history.
I guess after seeing Ethereum's success, everyone wanted to add smart contracts, apps and tokens. You're right, that's not the way to stand out in a crowded field.
RE: What is Syscoin?