I find this interesting and somewhat troubling. Not because I care about who's getting rich or not (except myself ofc) and not because I care who created XRP, but because 1) it's an unmotivated change of stance from ripple labs and 2) because it's evident that they are willing to twist the truth to achieve this change of stance.
If you own 60% of the "credits", 45% of the validating nodes, the associated credit brand and then say that there is no direct link between you and and the credits, then I think your lying. Regardless if you created the network or not (which it seems they did as well).
I don't think this is bad because it makes the XRP technology less good, or because I care about morale, but because it indicate some shady leadership that definitely could end up loosing investors. Something is not being disclosed to us. It must be something bad they want to evade by making these statements, or something good they want to accomplish ( meaning they lack something important) or else they wouldn't put up with the risks associated with such a truth twisting statement.
I'm worried that the banks and other big investors are as little informed about the issue as we are, and if I were a banker, I would definitely be worried and think twice before putting in more money into something shady like this. This could absolutely affect the price and therefor my earnings. I would very much like to know why it's so important for ripple labs to disconnect themselves from XRP. I'm sure ripple labs have good lawyers and probably won't have to face legal issues, but I would find it strange if it didn't result if investor issues.
Also, if XRP would be totally disconnected from ripple labs, would any of the big investors use XRP? If so, why? If not, then what would drive the price up? I don't think it can compete with blockchains as a "ledger for the people", only as a "ledger for the industry". I therefor think it's very important that they are motivating their actions to their investors, which seems to not be the case. I think that they need to be honest and open about their strategies if they want serious investors.