My point is that I'm skeptical of claims that you are creating a bridge to where "we" want to be, if that means a world that does not have trillions of dollars of legacy fiat currency markets that need to be "rippled." By and large the bitcoin community sees no need for a future where a company doing the sorts of things that Ripple does has a central role. That may simple be a lack of vision and the people running Ripple are just smarter than everyone else, or it may be a disagreement as to direction. I suspect the latter.
Speaking for myself personally, I agree with you. I do see Ripple as a bridge. It's possible that the future evolution of money will be rippling among friends, but it's also possible that the future of evolution of money will be a trustless crypto-currency. It's also possible the future will be something none of us can think of yet.
The business plan we made for Ripple was the best we could come up with given the information available to us at the time. If you can think of a way we could do things better, we're all ears. We definitely don't expect to be doing the same thing forever. If there's no place for us in the future, so be it. Either Ripple Labs will do something else or we'll cease to exist.
Personally, I'm largely indifferent to the form future money and payment systems take. I see advantages of each, and both will likely improve dramatically over the next few years. The market will ultimately decide. Ripple was designed to meet present needs and to move in the direction its designers believed would be beneficial.