The webserver is just good to have in case you need to do any server side scripting/tests. Also, check out IDE for creating cordova Apps if you haven’t already…people are using Sublime Text 2 with AngularJS plugins, Webstorm, and others.
I don’t have experience with Ripple but it looks promising. You can certainly use the native emulators to compare with Ripple, but of course you need to test on real devices.
From what I read, isn’t Ripple real time? Thought there was no need to reload