I know what you mean and I mainly utilize Ethereum to move between exchanges and for the trading pairs as well but if you think about it more people are selling right now than buying. Well think about when they move back to GDAX and want it there faster. They move Ethereum and sell that instead of trying to move BTC. Also a lot of these ICOs could start cashing out the funds they raised and there aren't as many ICOs being super successful raising a lot of money now so people aren't buying more Eth necessarily to purchase ICO tokens.

That is all a theory but Even though Ethereum has scaling issues I have had to swallow my medicine and realize that it is a main artery in the crypto space and will have to keep accumulating over time. But I'm more about catching the EOS train and becoming more powerful on here....etc.