I totally agree with everything you said. I don't even know what "blockchain" is when I first joined here. Thanks to some blog posts in here I began to understand even just a little bit as to how it all works.
And yeah me too! I am looking forward as to how this platform would evolve in the months to come. Especially next year after SMT is released.
So far Steem is doing great. A year ago we don't even have a working video streaming platform. Now we have at least two DTube and Vimm. Steem also have been penetrating Wordpress through Steempress. I have to say this blockchain compared to others is doing pretty well in terms of development. :)