quite an insightful piece @luzypher, i for one have never engaged in this f4f nonsense, its been slow grinding my way up, suffering flags and all, the current problem with steemit is that newbies come in without any formal guidance, the people introducing them in do not go over the ''unspoken rules'' of steemit, such as the ones you described above, and the newbies are all too focused on making money to do any actual research into the system and know how it works,. . . . .no wonder many quit after a month or so.
edit: this freaking happened on my post a few min ago, dont people read?!
I have to agree with you about the lack of direction on Steemit. Even though all the information they need to get started on the right track is right on the menu button on the main page, many people do not take the time to read the FAQ on how to get started on Steemit.
Another site I found very helpful is https://SteemitHelp.net