Very nicely put, I think the market is rife with manipulation and greed and it's no surprise what's happening now but you are right the fundamentals haven't changed.
I would say forget about the money and just consider for a second all the people working on Blockchain and Steem projects. All that has been built in the last few years. This is real added value and something the right type of investor will still be interested in investing in.
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.