Maidsafe don't market aggressively, it's not their way so I think you are mistaken. They did attend a could of bitcoin type conferences in person in the early days but I very much doubt they paid anyone to promote their coin.
IMO they are an outstanding team both technically and ethically. In fact it was the latter that got me interested in the project in 2014 and my impression then has been confirmed many times since.
This was in about 2015. Somebody was telling me how great is MaidSAFE and I should check it out, but when I wanted to ask her about technical details, she wasn't able to tell me anything specific.
It was before Ethereum launched, I really liked how passionately Vitalik was speaking on the stage about the altcoin he was making, and what kind of contracts can be created with a few lines of code, it was much more interesting to me than an altcoin with no technical information to tell you the truth :)
IMO they are an outstanding team both technically and ethically. In fact it was the latter that got me interested in the project in 2014 and my impression then has been confirmed many times since.