You should check it again. Totally open-source since a month . I agree they are not good at communicating but their main aim is not bitcoin community but exchange platform like zipzap and future gateways. With more gateways and nodes the ripple network will be  distributed enough to be fair and honest.

New features are coming with "contracts". I don't think it's too complex, it can easily be integrated and someone could use a ripple wallet without even know about it. About flexibility I couldn't really tell I'm not competent enough to say.


XRP distribution model is particular but you don't need xrp to use ripple network (mm ok actually you need less than 1$ to fund a wallet...). About long-term appreciation I think it may appreciate if the network find more gateways and plateforms that use ripple. Otherwise it may also disappear (just like bitcoin or mastercoin actually since there's not real economy backing them).