RE: Who is investing so much into "anything blockchain"?
I think the hostility will (actually already has) lead to a lot of potential users turning away...maybe trading XMR, but never using it as a trusted project/currency.
I have long given up on REALLY understanding which anonymity features are better...but my guts tell me, ZCash has a much better reputation within the influencer community (founders and devs of other projects/currencies) besides maybe bitcoin core, who seem to value XMR highly...
The only thing I see XMR stronger than ZCash is that ZCash's founders and devs are existing public people...with XMR at least I know only of FluffyPony as someone public....
Why is that important? Governments are still far from understanding the crypto sphere...at the moment they think, BTC may be more than a trend, but once they understand there are projects/currencies allowing to hide who is sending how much where - boy - they will freak. And then all publicly available people involved, have some problems to solve ... ;-)
But I think, XMRs greatest enemy is their handling of users and potential users...
From what I have seen in my limited experience, XMR is used more than zCash as an actual currency. For example alphabay takes XMR, BTC & ETH, but not zCash. I do think that theres a small change in the XMR community to try and end the hostility, your point about them turning away potential users is well made in that regard.