I tried ripcord and enjoy the idea of it, but I can't replace my slack workflow because ripcord does not have slacks keyboard integrations.

What ends up happening is I try to leave ripcord open and then every time there is more than just basic use of slack, I have to open up the original electron client to post pictures or polls or similar.

Yeah, I agree that's an issue. It's funny though because even if I'm running Slack in my browser, if someone posts a picture, it shows a thumbnail and you have to click on it and open it in a new window. It's such a horrible workflow. Ripcord makes that even slightly worse because if I click on an image in Ripcord, it launches my browser and I have to log in to Slack, navigate to the channel with the image, click on the image to open a new window... etc.

Given that Slack doesn't work remotely, I also have to ask, do they actually use their product? Because I can't imagine someone who can change the product putting up with the ridiculous workflows that Slack forces on you.

Agreed. Speed is only half the problem with Slack. The other half is lack of integration with the system it's running on. Ripcord doesn't do any better than Slack at this, and in many cases does worse.