Depends on what you mean by "important." I think Bitcoin is pretty much fine as it is and will be insanely important just by virtue of staying alive and growing.

I think BIP 300 is a neat idea, but I don't think that we need to "crush the alts" since they'll crush themselves given enough time. How to do experimentation on bitcoin and bring new features into bitcoin is an interesting problem. I'm not sure if what Paul proposes is the ultimate solution or not, mostly because I didn't spend enough time yet to make up my mind.