Thanks for raising some interesting points, Luke.
I'm going to go out on a limb with this and look at it in the context of investing as a whole.
Clearly, alt coins and the crypto markets are subject to a lot of pure speculation but I wonder how much you can actually call it investing. It's a bit like commodities markets-- very volatile, rumor driven, fortunes made-- and lost-- daily.
When we add "utility" to an investment vehicle, it gets a lot less exciting, because now we have to look at "boring" things like fundamentals. Business models, actual product development and the like become more important than just a rah-rah party. And that kind of investment is also "boring" because it will just slowly triple in value over 12 months, rather than double overnight, and then cut in half the day after.
My point here being that when we start getting into "utility" we start inviting a new class of investor (rather than "speculator") into the market... someone who simply buys-and-holds based on long term prospects, rather than just trading in and out, six times a day.
Seems to me that pure speculators are critical of "utility" because (to them) it takes away from the purely high-flyer speculative aspect.
It's like people who trade in "pink sheet" OTC stocks have no interest in owning shares in Dell or Boeing.
Again, this is purely speculation!