Thanks Alex. I tried to address why they're so firm, but maybe I missed something. Do you have some other important points which people should be aware of?
I suppose one thing to remember is, it's still kind of early for most altcoins. Litecoin has been battling it out for a while, but I don't think people are likely to ever get quite as excited about Litecoin as they have about Bitcoin - except for that time when Max Keiser hyped it up and it went to around $50. Litecoin just isn't that different from Bitcoin, so it ain't that sexy. Ethereum might do that though, providing the drama isn't too crazy. Or one of the other smart contract coins such as NXT or NEM.
It's more important to look at the market cap, compared to the value of the individual unit. There are five times as many ETH as there are BTC, so when it went up to around $20, it was actually really close to getting the kind of crazy gains you're describing.