As I recall Ripple was originally a network-of-issuers for multiple issuer-specific tokens model, it wasn't supposed to be a single-issuer/single-token. The XRP token itself was never intended to be the asset, it was only a cost-token that fuelled the exchange of other issuers' tokens, similar to offline community exchange systems (CES). Ripple the company post-dates Ripple the project, which AFAIK was originally solidly non-commercial in motivation. I was part of the early commercialization of Ripple sort of by proxy while building Kraken, although I was opposed to the move. Aside from the money people, there were some good engineers involved with the right intentions, drawing from solid experience and with an awareness of CES and attempts at networking thereof.

The whole central banking thing was a post-facto marketing push as crypto went mainstream AFAIK. I believe some of the people changed at some point, but I didn't have time to focus on Ripple and never met them. I believe the Ripple narrative mirrors my overall experience with crypto: nice technical ideas by people with positive social visions, suddenly people get paid to do it, utopian visions rapidly replaced with money people, regulatory ingress effectively destroys the USP, whole thing turns in to a scam, regulations become warped in to a system of protectionism and government effectively in cahoots with the dominant players. A real education in human behavior.