Would be cool if the featured/pinned posts wouldn't just be to announce things that are going to happen, and to do last minute polls for features already implemented, but also for crowdsourcing expertise.
The steemitwallet.com example, I think, is a great example of a missed opportunity to crowdsource infosec expertise for example. The idea of the split is great from a least authority perspective, the choice though to have a new domain for the wallet instead of for the posting-key only site goes against first principles of trust. Something that I feel would have been cought by an infosec expertise crowd-sourcing post earlier in the process.
I imagine this same principle to be sensible for other subjects as well. Avoid "I could have told you that wouldn't work" type of responses to actions and announcements by making "please tell us if you feel there are any problems with this" posts that are marked as "featured".
An other thing. Regarding advertisement. I think both STEEM and Steemit are missing out on a major enabler for the platform by not facilitating a STEEM based advertisements economy. The platform's value in the end is derived from the content. The best way for the platform to improve and grow is pulling in top content provider, get them to move from their current blogging or vlogging platform to the STEEM platform. Problem though, if they move to STEEM, whey will pretty much lose out on their advertising revenues while trying to establish a completely new revenue generating audience on STEEM. Not much of an incentive for them to make them move. There should, I feel, be an option for STEEM users to opt in to advertising on their posts. Such an option could draw in some of the bigger top content providers and as such improve the value of the platform. Same for the other side of the coin. The promoted tab is pretty much dead, as nobody ever looks there anyway. If I have 500 STEEM and want to run an add campaign, lets say for my novel, currently I'll need to take my STEEM, trade it for fiat currency, do to Amazon, FB, Twitter, whatever, and spent my STEEM there, while instead, if there were any top scifi book bloggers on the platform, I'dd much rather spent my STEEM right here and have my ads show up on the top blogger's page, than I would take my money out of the platform to run my ads on some platform I don't really support. Create the economy, and the platform will florifh IMHO. Don't cramp out on having ads fund Steemit Inc, when an adds economy could lift up the whole platform, and the value of Steemit Inc's STEEM assets with it.
Hope I'm making sense.