I understand your views about Litecoin guys, but I think you should consider DASH as being more suited to fill the gap that bitcoin has left. Unlike Litecoin, DASH has the high transaction rates with the added bonus of privacy if you desire, and instant send that if selected will guarantee a transaction will be processed immediately (<1s). I wish I had the link to the article that discussed transaction fees, but it found that of all the main currencies, DASH was currently the fastest and cheapest to send with.