In which faith, religion or belief system do you not find some form of action, performance or stories that some people can class as superstition? In this case as we are on a forum dedicate to Dorje Shugden, as such i assume that you refer to the the myriad rituals and ceremonies existent in Tibetan Buddhism. Please correct me if I am wrong. In any case since I practice Tibetan Buddhism, (and even that not well), I will try to answer this question from my own opinion, please bear in mind that I am not well versed in any ritual, ceremonies or prayers.
All of these things that have been mentioned have existed in cultures from time immemorial. They are ways in which people seek a connection with the divine, be it within or outside of once self. It creates a sense of identity, that distinguishes the practitioner from others who have differing views.
But more than that, reminds or inspires a practitioner of what needs to be done, how to act, and how to progress in one's spiritual path. For arguments sake let us take the stance that the Buddha taught purely one technique on transforming the mind and nothing else. For this to enter the mindstreams of those present may have been an easy task (there are many stories in the Sutras that tell of various people gaining high realisations and attaining meditative states merely upon hearing the Buddha speak the Dharma). But do you really think that the Buddha in his omniscience, as his title implies, would limit the way he taught and the methods that his Dharma to be taught to simply one way.
We all know that people are of differing mental intelligences and each of us have our own interests, so wouldn't the Buddhadharma be more appropriately spread in various forms than just one that tries to reach the subtle levels of a persons mind through a single technique?
In the case of Tibetan Buddhism, it is historically evident that the Dharma appropriated elements from the religion of Bon, the native religion of Tibet at the time that the great Santarakshita and the tantric adept Guru Rinpoche came to Tibet to establish the order of the Sangha within its borders. Why is this negative? They adapted the Dharma to suit the needs of the people living in that country as they were already seeped in a faith that relied heavily on what Redlantern, labels as superstition. But is that a bad thing?
Outer rituals, outlandish stories, vivid imagery and prayers to various beings is external but I'm sure most of this could be translated internally into our own practice. A Tibetan Buddhist centre I visited when I was a teenager, talked about 2 methods that they used for higher practices pertaining to achieving a level of meditative absorption necessary to reach the precipice of enlightenment. One was the tradition of Mahamudra, in which one works directly on the level of the mind - how it works, how to see it clearly, methods to calm it, how to understand it completely so that one can achieve enlightenment. On the other hand there was the Highest Yoga Practice of Vajrayogini and the way it was practiced at this centre involved much ritual, prayers and ceremonies at the beginning and ended with intense visualizations that changed the subtle makeup of a person's existence.
I asked the Lama why they didn't practice just one method. He laughed and told me, not all people have the same intelligence and not all people have the same karma. Some people are drawn to the practice of Mahamudra, others to Vajrayogini, others to a mixture of both and others to different techniques not taught at the centre. It depends of the practitioner. It can even be used as a method to draw people to the Dharma, such as myself. There is however the danger of Buddhism falling in to the crevasse of mere superstitious practices, but if there are people who know the meaning behind such practices and can elucidate clearly so that they are practiced correctly, sincerely and with a good motivation these practices can be of benefit to people along the path.
This is my belief anyway.
