Bear in mind that the trust lines are there to be used, even while you are not online and so on.

Possibly with the various lines of trust you lot have set up among yourselves RIpple has found routes you did not think of or know of. If none of you has complete information about all the lines the others have set up, but Ripple does, maybe none of you individually even has enough information about the combined trust network you collectively have built so Ripple is able to surprise you. Indeed presumably it is hoped and intended that pleasant surprises become more common as trust networks become richer and more connected.

So there probably should come a time when Ripple starts getting what we want done done in surprising ways whose details might involve obscure links between people none of whose direct trust line partners we even know or even know of.

(Until we fire up fancy trust web browsing widgets and so on and go exploring what is actually out there, that is, of course.)

-MarkM-