you added @steemstem twice in the list.
To me the key factors to success for new members is doing effort to learn and make a blog with the right intention which means you would still make most of your posts even if there was no such thing as post earnings. Writing about something that you are passionate about or something where the post itself help you personally really works.
One of the biggest issues of people who join now and have a difficult time is themselves. Sure it used to be more easy to earn something on steemit, but it is probably really easy now compared to a year from now. SBD still are trading against a premium price and there is a lot of potential for in increase in the STEEM Price. Also steemit similar to Youtube is not designed to be a get rich quick scheme, it really takes a lot of time to build something.
Something that might solve a lot of problems is devs having 33%+ of all steem that is being used to spread around between different communities and projects that curate and spread the rewards around similar to utopian and some others.
Cheers dude, I've fixed the double entry :)
And even more so this morning. Typical I sold a bunch before I went to bed to cover this months bills. DOH.
I agree that as long as you find interest in your work, then you are winning regardless of the rewards that come.
As far as your last point, I think/hope that this is coming. The Communities features, when they arrive would get off on a much better footing with some delegations out to those who are doing it right. We shall see.