I've been spending a lot of time reading the Ripple wiki, and I like what this involves. It seems a bit complicated for a basic user to understand right away, but the premise behind it seems really solid.
I especially like the fact that all the XRP has already been created. To me, I still find this concept of mining a bit confusing. I can't imagine what the general public would think a la Bitcoins.
My question to you in response to your post is this: how can individuals help to drive adoption? When I see a bug, I post it in github, but I'm hoping that perhaps there are other things that I could do to help. I'd like to get involved because this is a really easy system to move money around in but really needs community involvement to work.
The ripple system may has its value and now it's recognized by the bitcoin community. However, XRP don't have any value. Other devs who use Ripple's code and creat a fair system will win the future, but not the short-sighted (sell mtgox) and selfish ( pre-min 20% of the coin for himself) OpenCoin team.