There's a lot of encouraging (fundamental-- not necessarily technical) stuff going on at the moment. People are motivated by the rewards, and now we're seeing a few posts earn fairly well again... which makes it more likely everyone will get back to "normal" posting.
The second "rub" is people like myself have been somewhat "holding off" on doing widespread publicity for Steemit to our "off-site" followers, pending there being a somewhat stable site. For example, I have several "niche" blogs that regularly get 1200-1500 reads on new posts; a Facebook page with 16000+ followers, admin of a couple of FB groups with about 20000 members. Wasn't going to stake my reputation on saying "You guys oughta check out Steemit!" as long as it seemed like a highly volatile and unstable environment... now I'm back to working on "recruiting" posts to reach those. And I'm sure I'm not alone.
Meanwhile, I'm also hopeful that Steemit will ride the general uptick in interest in Alt coins... some have been doing pretty well recently, and as they get spendier and spendier (like Dash touching $100) investors might start shopping for the next "rising star." And why not Steem?
Great comment and great points. I have been holding off on recruiting outside members as well. I have been fearful that they would join only to have some major rule change happen that turns them off forever. However, I think we are now closer than ever before to a point where I feel comfortable bringing them in. Plus with the whale experiment or linear rewards curve, (whichever we have at the time) it makes it easier than ever before for new users to earn some rewards. Thanks for a great comment!