PPCoin excites me a lot. I honestly think the only reason it hasn't risen even further in price is because people are still trying to wrap their heads around the original ideas. It has a lot of unique advantages over Bitcoin and Litecoin, I am compiling an easy understand list of them and am putting them on a simple website... stay tuned.
Yeah, I agree with your take on PPCoin, I think Proof of Stake is an incredible concept that could end up being very influential in crypto coins.
I just wrote a guide relating to PoS minting ->
PPCoin Proof of Stake Minting Setup Guide for PPCoin, a lot of people don't really "get" the upside of PPCoin I think.