Let's not be intellectually dishonest. If there was any real motivation, Ripple could have been designed so that XRPs were produced as the result of proof of work. The XRP production schedule could be set to create 100 billion XRP over the course of 10 years at either a fixed or a decelerating rate, with the target difficulty adjusted to maintain the rate of production.

Of course, you guys objected to that because of the "wasted electricity" but unlike Bitcoin, Ripple's XRP production via proof of work would eventually end, with total power consumption dropping to zero (no more mining). After the source is released, anyone can make this change. The total power requirements for using proof of work to distribute XRPs using a stochastic process would be finite.

XRP Exchanges identical to Bitcoin exchanges (but hopefully not identical in terms of MtGox lag) would crop up that let you buy and sell these mined XRPs so that people can do things like open up accounts.

Now the drawback of this method is that there is no obvious way to fund the development of the software. I rather like that OpenCoin has a profit motive and a path to generate revenue. It ensures that we get good solid source code with lots of unit tests and juicy wiki / API specs / documentation. Plus, Ripple gets guidance via CEO and a board of directors who are doing the legwork to make the system successful, instead of a bunch of neckbeards whose idea of satisfying customers is implementing "M of N signature transactions".