The development is still going and in my opinion Ripple will be placed side by side with bitcoins soon.
We must have trusty alternates. Ripple is a 100% premined coin. The optimal value for a 100% premined coin like this one: 1XRP at $0 maximum.
Ripple != XRP.
XRP are premined, Ripple is a network that works very similarly (only more focussed and with quite a few improvements) to colored coins.
Also there seem to be quite a few people who disagree with your sentiment in practice, XRP are traded quite constantly at about half a US-cent per piece.