I've been here for one year only but I see already some 'trends' such as people abandoning the platform as soon as the price is low and planning to get back once the conditions are more favorable, shit posts like you mentioned, curation rewards hunters, etc. These things are not good for the platform at all. But there are still people who do a great job here and even promote Steemit/Steem on other social media as well. What we need is to bring more people with large followings on other social media so that they bring their followers with them. There are projects who work hard to promote Steemit and get people on board and we all should support them.
You gave a great challenge and I hope that people will come up with some ideas that will make this platform great again :)