Blockchain History ...
Ethereum Classic is actually the original ETH chain, so technically speaking ... Ethereum (the fork of ETH Classic) is better than ETC.
Litecoin (a fork of Tenebrix) is better than Tenebrix (which is ded).
NEM (a fork of NXT) is better than NXT (even prior to the new codebase).
Monero (a fork of Bytecoin) is better than Bytecoin (even prior to the new codebase).
I'm sure there are plenty of other lesser examples, but these are the most glaring and popular.