My impression is that whatever Ripple might be, is not related to cryptocurrency as currency. Significantly then, it seem that XRP are not meant to ever be valuable in and of themselves. If all Ripple'n'Co. did was make that clear, it would avoid the naive user spending money on those XRP. Leaving people open to make mistakes whether by neglect or deliberate ambiguity, is essentially exploitation and should not be encouraged.
For the better part of last year, members of RL's repeatedly stated (in these forums and across the web) that XRP was a risky investment and is not intended as a speculative currency. What people do beyond that is there choice.
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If XRP are meant to hold value, then what we know of the spread of them looks very suspect; if XRP are not meant to hold any value and they are to be given away to oil the machines of whoever wants to host a server, then that has not been made clear. Either way, Ripple support sucks at communicating what is intended, relative to other Bitcoin2.0 protocols who are doing that better and more openly. Consequently, all I've seen of Ripple, is pushing people away - people who by rights should be the most enthusiastic of all.
This has also been made clear that RL's intends to giveaway 55% of XRP to charities, gateways, market makers and other entities that can provide utility to the network. 25% goes to fund RL's operations in growing the network. The other 20% is for the founders.
Other "Bitcoin 2.0" protocols as you call them,
are doing nothing but repackaging Ripple ideas and pushing vaporware to people who dislike Ripple but key difference is, Ripple actually works. I haven't seen Ripple pushing anyone away, in fact, it's been the other way around but at some point you have to stop banging your head against the wall and realize that some people just don't get it and there is nothing you can do to convince them. Add to the fact that RL's is not currently on a general public/average user push. That's not beneficial to the network at this stage of the game. The focus is on the entities that will provide utility and in turn become trusted validators, as apposed to rounding up a bunch of amateur speculators, just to pump the internal currency. RL's is looking for stability in the currency and that requires volume based on utility, not speculation. This makes cross-currency transactions much easier.
XRP may indeed be valuable one day but it's a long term, risky venture. That will depend on the utility of the network and whether people choose to move through XRP to facilitate transactions or will market makers just provide direct liquidity between currency pairs. RL's founders are hoping for the former but not at the expense of the success of the network.
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*Give me a load of Ripple, maybe I'll like it more.. but why would you do that, if they are valuable? rJ2zDmzhxQNspB6RsxKgp8Ro1odEsACCEx
XRP are currently in the $0.015 range. If you can't afford that, you don't need a handout, you need a job.
Less than 100XRP can sustain over 50 transaction per day, for the next 100 years. So, you don't need much. 