What you write is well considered and very interesting.
I think Steem was always going to be an oligarchy, but it is probably a better one than in the real-world because the rules are slightly clearer, and public.
One thing you have to credit the Steem 'government' with is for allowing change to happen. Certainly it may not always be the right change, but Steem doesn't seem to be stagnating in a conventional sense.
Whether the appropriate changes will be made to allow the platform to grow, or logical contradictions which lead to the externalisation of costs come to dominate remains to be seen I guess.
I'm interested in your ideas to address Steem's shortcomings as you see them. What other changes would you like other than witnesses not being able to vote? did I read somewhere a longer power-down period too?
I agree, it seems that their self-interest may not always be the most enlightened, but I think enemy is inaccurate.
It's very lateral, but this article may give some ideas for how we can think about governance:
http://ijsaf.org/archive/15/3/bock_etal.pdf
I don't see how their relationship with the community can be worse than detached detachment, and this falls far short of enmity. It feels more like concerned detachment to me.