NXT is legitimate. Early stages just as all new crypto technologies.
Mastercoin, NXT and Bitshares.
All three have promising features in development. Overall I believe that Invictus will deliver the future. As an investor I have captured positions in all three. Its all alpha tech so far and relatively cheap.
I have the client and perform regular updates- Definitely not for gimps.
Yes, the theoretical potential is definitely there, but in my vocabulary, "alpha tech" means that the core of the "alpha" feature is mostly implemented, but it's just buggy or limited. But that's not the case with that stuff above, Bitshares doesn't exist yet AFAIK (only Protoshares), and NXT also doesn't have nothing yet, like the promised decentralized exchange. That's not alpha tech yet, it's just the promise.
But I agree with you - let's give them the chance, at least with Protoshares, I believe the concept is correct, it's just not validated in real world yet.