It doesn't matter. I don't care what position BitShares is in; when this is ready for prime time, it will go much, much higher.
It matters a lot for marketing. You have to realize that one of the most important aspects of marketing is perceived rank.
If Counterparty overtakes Bitshares today then millions could flow out of Bitshares to Counterparty in a panic. We saw some weird activity with Ripple but that wasn't a legitimate overtake of the Bitshares market cap.
I understand your concern, people do indeed panic buy/sell. I just make it a habit of not worrying about something I can't directly affect. All we can do is push forward with our plan and do our best to execute as clean as possible.
Nobody that understands the fallacy behind proof of waste is going to be panicking or selling, to buy into any proof of waste.
I wouldn't hold your breath. Governments have been running on proof of waste for centuries.
You are talking apples and oranges here. Bitcoin proof of waste benefits nobody, so it is really waste, for everyone.
The wasteful stuff governments do may be wasteful to most of us, but it is at least beneficial to the guys at the tops of the hierarchies. And once we learn how to build our consensus building abilities in a much more intelligent, efficient, and larger way (i.e. way more people) than hierarchies do, nobody will be investing in any hierarchy/bureaucracy, ever again.