What's Up with the Dystopian Craze?

I started reading Divergent last week, mostly because I wanted to see what all the hype was about and because I wanted to finish the dang thing before the movie comes out...which I neglected to do in the case of The Hunger Games. Anyhoo, the first half kind of drags, but mid-way it really picks up and now I'm finally hooked, enough to to toodle over to Amazon and buy the next 2 in the series.

The story is rather bleak, which is a given being that it's a dystopian. Still, there's no denying this book is flying off the shelves and readers are clamoring for more. My question is why? What is the underlying appeal of reading end of the world type stories? After noodling that for awhile, I came up with some handy dandy reasons...

3 Reasons Why Dystopians Are In Demand

#1. Because as crappy as our world is, it can always get worse.
Immersing ourselves in a fictional environment that's even more horrific than our own makes a reader feel better about their own messed up life. Yeah. I know. Sick and twisted, but true...kind of like watching a train wreck.

#2. Because maybe--just maybe--society at large will wake up and stop the political/power-grabbing madness.
By reading about worst case scenarios, hopefully people will rise up and/or band together to prevent an all-out war from splitting society apart.

#3. Because the heroes in dystopians are HEROES.
Everyone loves to see an underdog win, especially an underdog who's up against impossible odds. There's nothing wimpy about the characters in dystopians. Those that are die. Dystopian heroes suffer more than regular heroes and generally still come out on top, making them admirably drool-worthy.