Bastet's Chosen wrote:

I have to disagree with you here.  I personally would rather the hints of
the mysterious stanger disappear.  Instead of worrying over who gets the
ring (and control of Ranma) and then how they get outsmarted (which seems
to be the only way to defeat a cleaver evil person with ultimate power) I

Personally I'm still in favour of Happosai being the source of the ring.

would rather see how Akane deals with having the world at her fingertips
(what is the point of anything then?) and Ranma and Akane's relationship
with the control she has.  I think the character interaction has much more
promise than conflict over the ring and Ranma's dealing with slavery to
someone he hates.  Slavery to someone he care about is more interesting to
deal with.

For a while.  I don't see any reason why the story can't do both.  In fact
without some kind of bad guy, the story would be lacking any kind of climax.
There's a limit to the amount of character development you can do.  
It's not like this is a waffy thing where Ranma will confess how much he 
finally loves being Akane's slave at the end, or an emotional piece where
he storms off because of his mistreatment.  From the start there was obviously
a bad guy.  Somebody sent that ring, that somebody obviously did not have
Ranma's best interests at heart, and if you are going to establish that 
at the start of the story, it would be a cop out to pretend he isn't going
to show up at some later point.