More accurate title would be "direct value of cryptocurrency". Bitcoin has very conservative approach with this. The core developers won't merge any features which don't serve the basic idea of currency.
However alternative chains could be used to develop many of these systems. I think there can be a tremendous value with public database, not controlled by anyone. Lately I have been thinking about alt-chain which could be used as a distributed stock/asset/IPO ledger. Similar to http://www.bitcoinx.org/ , but done in a separate chain to server the needs better.
See my comment above. Many cool features (like timestamping) do not need any modification of the existing software. E.g. it is entirely possible to make DNS without alternative chain (like Namecoin), but fully on the existing block chain with timestamping through deterministic addresses.
However alternative chains could be used to develop many of these systems. I think there can be a tremendous value with public database, not controlled by anyone. Lately I have been thinking about alt-chain which could be used as a distributed stock/asset/IPO ledger. Similar to http://www.bitcoinx.org/ , but done in a separate chain to server the needs better.