Initiative IS a secondary stat.... just saying....

That said, usually no. Thou I do believe for ninjas that have a CHANCE to trigger a status (knockdown on hinata's normal attack), combo helps in that regard. The other stats are fairly useless unless there is a significant difference between the two side, in which case the runes will hardly help.

The only problem I have with this feature coming out after months of game is that, as a responsible and contributing member of my group, I have donated well over 35m to my current group and about 5m to my previous one(left that one cause leader quit the game w/o notice, thou we later found out it was medical emergency but... yeah...). There are really only three type of people who have spare coins on their hand: ptw, ppl who knew this was coming and leeches (some people are a combination of them, the second category is arguably also the third).
While I have no particular issue with the first two, I really don't like the fact that people get rewarded for leeching. I somewhat wish this feature is tied to group donation and you can't spend on it more than you have donated to the group....

Oh, and for the record, I have heard of this feature before and half of my donation is made AFTER I've heard it. So yeah....

I didn't know it was coming this early, just that this exist and chances are it will come eventually. And frankly, group donation provides very little personal benefit (a few spin of wheel and with the effort of many, speed up guild upgrade by a small %). Considering that only skill upgrade are of any value, and our group is already lv 8, the amount of coin equivalent to speed up the progress to lv 9 skill (lv 9 group+lv 9 skill basically) is HUGE. So holding off for it and hoarding coins would be an option with just "it will be here eventually". So I did in fact consider just hoarding coins....

yeah, I haven't had any initiative drop for me either, thou one of my group mate says he got one. That's the one I plan to get from the exchange because it seems rare. Still, it is a secondary stat....

That's right, there must be a HUGE difference for it to happen, I've only seen it happen when I fought ppl 40 lvs below me (their control on me failed) or in ninja exam where mine fails on stuff. I suspect that the fact that some people can hit through hinata with a normal attack have something to do with control or something, as that also only happens when there is a huge gap in raw power as well(mostly ninja exam again)
That said, there is a good chance that whatever amount you can get on a rune wont be enough to make a difference on any fight that's evenly matched and any fight where it's not evenly matched, it's a win more or lose less situation unlikely to change tide of battle, so it's probably quite useless. Only exception might be ninja exam PvE where the tiny chance of resist/not-resist might let you grind to win.