I mean to argue that I beleive LTC gets the majority of it's value by being an alt to BTC. It has to remain meaningfully different from BTC to keep it's value. ASIC's basically destroy what seperated LTC from BTC and without that distinction (GPU vs ASIC's or decentralized vs cerntralized) I think LTC loses it's place as an alt coin to BTC. ASIC's centralize hashing power, the alt coins that I think will win out will effectively avoid the cancer of centralized hashing (ASIC farms run by deep pockets that overtake networks). If LTC succombs to ASICS's my theory is that LTC loses it's battle and so it will lose it's value. One of the biggest benefits of scrypt was being ASIC resistant, losing that benefit IMO doesn't bode well for scrypt coin values.
Scrypt ASIC's basically blur further the difference between BTC and LTC and *if* LTC gets it's value by being distinct in a meaningful way from BTC then there is less value for LTC once ASIC's close the gap between the two coins.
To go along with that I think that alt coins are searching for a way to effectively solve an issue of decentralization. ASIC's destroy, IMO, decentralization because they give massive hash power to those with large amounts of capital. So if Scrypt asic's take off, it will leave an area for another dominant alt coin to seperate itself from BTC as LTC once did but no longer will if it gets overrun by scrypt asic.
FWIW I have a cunning ability to believe strongly in something that is often the exact opposite of the manner in which things play out, so there is that.
This is a good hypothesis and probably has some truth to it. However, in the end, all mineable crypto-currencies are subject to centralization.
1) ASIC-friendly algorithms: Obvious.
2) GPU-friendly algorithms: There are folks out there with hundreds or thousands of GPUs in datacenters. GPU-friendly algorithms are probably the closest to coming close to the original Bitcoin ideal of "one computer, one miner" but still there is considerable centralization of power.
3) CPU-friendly algorithms: Already largely controlled by large botnets and Amazon AWS server farms or other cloud computing services. This is just as centralizaed as the ASIC algorithms.
This problem is why Dan Larimer (the BitShares/ProtoShares guy) decided to go full-on Proof-of-Stake, with no mining, and a "fair" distribution via a convoluted IPO. This is why the Counterparty guys decided on a "fair" distribution via Proof-of-Burn. This is why the NXT and MasterCoin guys decided on a "fair" distribution via IPO, and Ethereum will do the same thing. Who knows what Ripple does/did, they gave some Ripple to investors and some to a distributed scientific computing project "computingforgood.org" that pays contributors in Ripple.
So pretty much ALL of the "Crypto-Currency 2.0" developments have decided on some form of Proof-of-Stake, with no real place for mining. In order to centralize power in those coins, one would have to centralize ownership of a large percentage of those coins, which is something that they have apparently managed to avoid so far (although it is not inconceivable; however, the person trying to own large portions of the coin for devious purposes would, when found out, ruin the value of the coin to other people, and their presumably sizable investment would be lost as people abandoned a vulnerable currency).
In the end, the mining arms-race is simply wasteful. The security of Bitcoin is not in the difficulty, it is in the blockchain and the number of independent mining nodes connected.