does ripple still work in practice if this default is switched to "off"?
Whether you "ripple" or not isn't an explicit setting in the client, nor should it be. Rippling happens when you extend trust to more than one issuer for the same type of currency. If you don't want to "ripple", don't extent trust twice for the same currency.
Huh? But what if I want to hold more than one type of USD IOU? Are you saying everyone should just use a single gateway? Surely there are valid reasons to trust more than one. For example, it becomes more convenient to deposit with a new bank, though you still hold an account at your previous bank.
And I'm still searching for an answer to my question:
does ripple still work in practice if this default (free "liquidity providing") is switched to "off"?
Misterbigg, do you know the answer?