I feel you brother. I sort of got this polarizing view of Steemit too: sometimes promising, sometimes disheartening. I joined Steemit wanting to blog, then realized it wasn't what I thought it was, but ended up staying for the community here (and still working on that blogging aspect). Good thing you have found something to keep you going too.
In an ideal platform, Curie does not need to exist. But Steemit as it is, an author can pour maybe 12 hours on a post and have no one read it. With curation teams like Curie and many others, it's comforting to know that there's a good chance you'd get at least one reader XD. Like you, I'm grateful to people like Carl who leave thoughtful comments, even one like that make writing the post worth it.
But we can still be optimistic. Who knows maybe there'll be a solution to improve decentralization in the platform. The site is still in beta, things will shape up in the future I think 😉
I'm looking forward to what the Steemit team has in store for the future, because the site already works really well in beta, complaints aside.
I think it's great Curie is here and that one day their philosophy will be representative of Steemit as a whole rather than just occupying a small corner of the site. I think Curie and people like Carl stand for what the site is about.
I hope you'll be able to get back into blogging soon. I hit blocks like those myself sometimes, where I really don't feel like I want to write or that what I put out there won't be good, or won't be read. Often you just have to push through those fears and put something out anyway. You'll never think it's perfect.