> It's astounding, considering both chains are basically the same system

They aren't at all. Immutable smart contracts are the basis of ETC and not ETH. It's only one difference, but it's a difference as fundamental as the difference between gold and dollars.

ETH is now a centralized currency. I have trouble seeing any purpose to using ETH now that it's centralized, given that existing centralized money/contract systems are much more mature. But given both ETH and ETC are too buggy for me to use, I've no skin in the game, so I'm happy to wait and see if some benefit to a centralized cryptocurrency emerges that I wasn't aware of.