No, I am not really familiar with the history before HF19. I understand what you are saying. I can see the frustrations and disappointments for lack of progress (or visible progress). I just choose to focus on the positive. Among them, I see platform working as positive, smts still in development, there were improvements to dev portal, hivemind, etc.
I was also a bit frustrated and disappointed towards the end of 2018. This year will be awesome for Steem. I think/hope Steemit Inc will deliver this year.