Ripple is meant to be a stable means of exchange it's fast and easy to transact it is now risky because the value has gone up so much with 2/3 of the currency yet to be allocated with 1billion ripple been released every month.
Having a stable currency isn't such a bad thing and their is a maximum amount that can be created I wouldn't write it off as it certainly has it's placed in a well hedge portfolio but now is a good time to take profit!
Agree with all of your points. The practicality of Ripple's company and mission is great. They can do great things for making transactions faster, cheaper, and more secure.
But the majority of the community is investing in this coin solely on the basis that they think it's safer than other cryptos because Ripple is working with banks. In a sense, it is safer because there is a full-fledged company behind it, doing real things with established companies. But in terms of investing in XRP, it's a dangerous game when the Ripple company can alter the coin's entire environment with a click of a button.
It's open source so if that happens we can still fork the coin if worse comes to worse, it's not more secure than bitcoin because it's not using proof of work so as a store of value it's not as good in the literal sense with dollar value being something completely different.