You summed it up perfectly by saying how Steemit has good engagement, but the other sites have better "views" overall.
It's frustrating. You would think that all of those basic features - grouping photos together and stuff like that - would be an easy, low-hanging-fruit kind of thing for Steemit Inc. However I've learned that when it comes to blockchain, nothing is an easy as it seems.
For all its flaws, Steemit is a Top ~1,000 globally popular website and we're doing great. This current recession is a coincidence due to BTC. So I'm optimistic. I think we may have a slower growth curve (with perhaps a more extreme hockey stick at the end) than we expected as things heated up last year.
In the meantime I'm starting to use Instagram to try and build a broader audience alongside my core Steem crew.