@ Question #2: Steemit is owned by Steemit Inc. and development decisions are driven mainly by the majority of stakeholders (whales). Not sure one can claim democracy here when thinking about the above but things have been held under control so far and fairness has been attained.
I know GitHub sounds too geeky to most, but it could be a way to vote for changes with the reactions on the Issues/Pull requests until an actual voting system is in place (here's a new steemit tool idea :):) ).
Maybe in the future we will really get to decide what is the first post payout time, or what gets displayed and where in the profile page :)
For now and with the small active userbase, it's perfect as it is and it's something we all need to accept :)