Plasmonic inverse-rib optical waveguides, consisting of a high-index inverse rib embedded in low-index medium above a flat metallic surface, are investigated under four aspects: (i) the optimal angle θ of the rib sidewall for tight modal confinement is assessed, (ii) the effect of the geometric parameters and the wavelength on propagation losses is given, (iii) we use a 3D simulation to assess how well light from an emitting dipole is captured by such a tightly guiding structure, and (iv) we show that for two such parallel hybrid waveguiding systems, when one of them has added gain, we have a plasmonic version of the PT-symmetric waveguide arrangement, and we additionally show that complex gain is needed to restore a truly exceptional point in its propagation constant evolution.