The only other two coins that come to my mind as similarly "safe bets" (no risk of loosing 80% value overnight), but with long-term potential, are Vertcoin and Unobtainium.
every coin that is not Bitcoin risks becoming irrelevant in the next few years.
that being said I agree Vertcoin has a strong community and has potential but it also has problems.. If you don't know what your doing with the miner you can burn out your card, also it was sold on the idea of being ASIC resistant (like many other coins) but there are already plans to have Scrypt-N ASIC brought to market very soon.
DarkCoin is another one that brings new technologies to the table but it is mired in controversy over its instamined launch and its Darksend tech which may end up getting the coin outright banned in some countries.
einsteinium (EMC2) is a coin which has very similar ideals and problems when compared to Karma (their goal is to fund scientific research projects)... they had a solid launch but now their community is falling apart.. so it might be a good time to buy in cheap before they regroup OR it may just fade into obscurity.
a lot of the other coins are just splinter groups from larger coins who either didn't like the direction the coin was heading in OR didn't like the initial distribution.
when I first started trading coins.. there were only about 5 or 6 coins and each of them being fairly unique.
now there are some 300 or so clones and many more on the way....
I would expect almost all of them to fail as the developers get bored or overwhelmed and move on to the next pump coin.
we live in interesting times indeed but sometimes I think this is just getting all a little bit too ridiculous.. I mean seriously... Redd, Black, White, Yellow, Orange and now Lime coin!!? Doge, Kitteh, Panda, Panda2, Elephant (Karma), Flappy (bird) coin!!?
Anyways long story short.. trust no one.. don't put all your eggs into the same basket and follow your gut instincts.. if it looks too good to be true (or too ridiculous) then it probably is.