Why could you not have released a version that doesn't partake in a consensus? i.e. your server(s) don't have to pay attention to whatever other servers are out there just because they exist.
If we opt not to create a consensus with people, then we will be intentionally creating network splits. This would be irresponsible behavior that would be devastating to the reliability of the network. It would be like if Bitcoin had gone public before 21 million Bitcoins was established as the number of coints.
I've only started reading about ripple but my initial thoughts are that it won't gain any real traction as a community credit system, as people aren't going to want to hassle their friends for money when they weren't one of the end parties of the transfer. I can see this being acceptable to a business with contracts in place but not socially.
I would have said the similar things about Facebook and texting. But I agree, social/community credit is not realistic in the short term.
That brings me to the other claim on your website: "free(ish)". As Gateways and the intermediaries will be for-profit entities, I don't see how this will be free(ish) at all, even if the base XRP cost is near-free everybody else will charge money. It will possibly be cheaper than other ways of sending money, but I don't even see how that's guaranteed.
It's not guaranteed. That's a forward looking statement. We expect transaction fees to be very low for the foreseeable future. And we expect that much of the time, once there's real liquidity in the network, you'll be able to do many things at no premium because you'll be helping people who want to move in the other direction. We're hopeful competition and volume will bring down the transfer fees. It doesn't cost a gateway anything to have its IOUs transferred, that's just a way to cover their costs. So more volume should bring that down.