It took at least half a decade if not a full decade to get to the obvious place and I (and everyone else) wrote Zcash off in that time.
You said
> As it stands, any private transaction on the Zcash chain stands out like a sore thumb
Is that actually still the case or has the change to defaults made anonymity more common?
> and I (and everyone else) wrote Zcash off in that time
Seemingly in the ecosystem you exists in yeah, but in the world at large Zcash seems to have at least 6x the volume. I guess "everyone else" didn't get your memo. Regardless, I don't really care personally which one is better or which one you specifically use, as long as what we say is being truthful :)