I do not know what is better, I feel myself like my parents or grandparent when they start saying "when I was young everything was better" so for me the time in 2017 was better although maybe that is just very relative. We will see how it develops, because we used to curate Artworks all the time we can see how the number of Artists and Artworks dramatically shrunken. but also many people who were active and used to be my friends are not active anymore. I hope that maybe in other tags the number of posts increased. But I am afraid there are not many new users there. Of course there are many people who creating second, third or forth account, like that one who downvoting everyone with 10% this is one and the same person but has multiple accounts.
Anyway, like you we have also heard that great news and such high quality special effect series. We definitely will watch it :)
Well, you know what the saying, ignorance is bliss. i miss too the 2017, when i started, Steemit was full of creative people and everything was exciting. But as you progress and you see a little better, the mystery fades and behind it is a clash of different interests and ideas. Not so exciting... I am afraid but i think that the very low of valur of Steem is the first reason that the artists left the platform. It is easy if you write posts for newsteem and steemit to create and upload them anywhere you are. It is just thoughts. But artists have to spend time to make the artwork first. If the documention of the process, the texts and the uploading are not worth the time and effort they will seek another way to get rewarded.
I am sure that if the price goes up we will see a lot of creative people returning:)