The main differentiator between Litecoin and Bitcoin appears to be the quantity of coins available, the frequency in which the blocks are mined, and the mining technology is different.
The first benefit "Quantity" appears to be a subdivision of another arbitrary fixed value. Since BTC is easily divisible, I don't see the the benefit of having more units that can also be subdivided.
The second benefit "Frequency" appears to create more blocks for the sake of creating blocks, and the safety zone of one 1 hour double spend attack has changed from 6 blocks BTC to 150 blocks Litecoin. (no benefit)
So what economic value does litecoin provide
- During the high value mining period? (high block reward)
- During the low value mining period? (low block reward)
In other words, it seems that the initial differences between BTC and Lightcoin deal with the block reward, but once that is used up (or too low of a value) there isn't much more that makes Lightcoin more exceptional than BTC.