Continuing the rewards past 7 days is certainly key and I don't get why it couldn't be done. The way it is now, basically says that anything you post here is worthless after 7 days. That might work for blogging, but not for music, art, videos, etc. All those things have value long after the post pays out. If this issue could be solved, it would surely send steem to the moon.
I don't see why my vote couldn't monetize a post from last year just as easily as from 2 days ago.
... And the website needs work in so many areas as well.
We certainly don't want people just reposting stuff when they have more followers. I don't know a lot about the tech side of things but there has to be a way to make it work.