They have been and are given away for free. You must have missed their very first giveaway to members of this very forum. They just aren't going to dump all the XRP to a handful of crypto-enthusiast because that does nothing to help fairly distribute the currency to the world and for Ripple, it's about masses not the miners.
Yes, your edit above caught me on the hop: "Less than 100XRP can sustain over 50 transaction per day, for the next 100 years. So, you don't need much. Wink" which is news to me.
I've wasted enough time on looking into Ripple to do more just yet, unless it's made very obvious. I'll return later then to consider it again.