Great post. I'm just now seeing it (and the first part) because someone I follow resteemed it. I'm now following you and I resteemed this also. I love that these conversations are taking place and people are thinking about how to improve this system.
Steem is like playing a video game , being stuck at level 8 and being required to pay $10 000 to get access to level 9. Actually it's even worse than this because on steem you never even get to go to level 1, you are just stuck and so you leave the game.
Such a great analogy. I joined Steemit right as it was mooning to $4. My vote, at one point, was worth almost a $0.25! It was so exciting! That, I think, was the hook for me. It's been a discouraging decline ever since. Right now I see things go up by about a penny when I vote, so I still at least get some encouragement, but if it was higher... that would just be so cool.
I hope these conversations continue and we further improve this system as we move forward.