Ripple has done nothing but plummet the last few months.
Ripple != XRP, the price is still quite stable in USD terms (though falling slowly there as well).
Actually it has been falling for a bit less than 2 months, if you got in before that, you have a ~100% or more profit still.
Is there a list of sites accepting XRP floating about anywhere?
You can transparently use XRP at current market rates to pay at any place that accepts Bitcoins for example.
I actually tried using Ripple and I failed. The markets and uses for Ripple are abysmal because nobody cares.