Yes, are are a lot of good things happening already! I know STINC wants us all to believe that SMTs are going to be some kind of "magic pill" but I prefer looking at what's already here and being applied. Promises are great, but they don't amount to a hill of beans unless they are actually executed.
I really like Steem Monsters too, because it's an "outside-Steemit" gig as well as an "internal" thing that runs on the Steem Blockchain.
I imagine part of the reason Steem tends to be ranked very highly by Weiss Ratings is also that we have a lot of functional utility, already... most project are long on plans and very short on execution.