traders have been observed gaming the price differences between exchanges.
I have done this. It's called arbitrage, it's not "gaming," and it's an absolutely essential part of a well-functioning market. Yes, there have been many times in which the arbitrage serves to push down the price of Steem, but this is part of what people are talking about when they complain about the "cost of the SBD peg." The only way to raise the price of SBD (to $1) is the decrease the price of Steem.
I didn't mean to imply any negative connotation with the word "gaming". I think it does fit, though (in a non-technical sense). The word choice is not an essential part of my point, though. Call it "arbitrage" if you prefer. The main point is that although I know the correlation between the downturn of steem's price and the launch of the external SBD market is probably coincidental, until I see STEEM go on a sustained positive trend, I can't rule out that some sort of dysfunctional feedback loop among the peg, the 7 day conversion, the internal exchange, and the external exchange is a contributing factor in the decline.
If someone is looking for an opportunity for simplification, there it is.