"...abandon this whole decentralize everything crypto-anarchist bull-crap."
Why? What advantage would Steem have in a marketplace of centralized currencies?
I reckon decentralization - and the power to craft organizations and industry outside of extant (corrupt) mechanisms - is the shit that needs to be done. It is the potential to deliver a platform that can enable others to build outside of captive mechanisms that most promises success to Steem, because it will lure every nation-builder, independent entrepreneur, and outraged activist that faces the current paradigm with it's guarantee of ending up no better than feeder cattle for banksters.
Get your head out of Goldman Sachs' ass, and think about what Steem is, can be, and what it's competition is.
The whole point of Steem is to change that paradigm, not to be just another crypto. We don't need to get in where we fit in. Steem can better create a new table for folks to belly up to than wedge itself a place at the one that already exists.
There is a market for this, and I dearly hope Steem can deliver a very robust mechanism that can serve that market, because the market is practically everyone that pays 50% of their income in taxes, and the competition is strong, well-established, and corrupt to the core.
If you just want to make strong financial returns, there may be less risky investments. If, like me, you are interested not only in money, but the freedom to make money without making obeisance to the banksters (and paying their rent), then Steem is probably the only investment that could produce the returns you seek.
What makes steem any different than the other 2k cryptos out there? I hear you and I get your point about what a crypto could do. My point is, what makes steem be that coin when it is competing against thousands of others? It needs a competitive advantage within the crypto space. Otherwise who cares if it does things better than fiat money and legacy financial systems, 2k other crypto's do as well.