I have been wanting to write a post on this exact topic and have a lot of ideas kicking around in my head, and came to mostly the same conclusions as well, you beat me to it.
I think the Steemit interface needs to change to make it easier to see what people are doing, sure you follow people and have a feed but it gets a little difficult after a while as more and more posts flood in.
Making the Billionaires even richer as they funnel the profits off into tax havens really gets to me, why people would want to do it I just don't know?(well I do they are hypnotised by mass media and have to know what their "friends" are doing)
I have told everyone I know about Steemit and just this week have managed to get a friend signed up, only by using the Steem Dollar example to get him interested.
I'd like to see notifications work properly, so when someone clicks on up vote it tells you, I think this would make things a little more interactive.
Another idea I had (its out there and know no one would like it) is basically close Steemit for a month, make it exclusive, make it hard to get. Generate as much FOMO as possible. Then all the personality types that think they are missing out would rush to get on after it is opened back up again.
If the interface made it more social somehow, (I really don't know how I don't use fbook or twitter and hate them with a passion) a way to get more involved with what friends are doing?
Actually that image with the status updates, friends and the CIA (spot on by the way) maybe steemit should build some kind of functionality like that so you can have a group of friends who can automatically vote with you or follow your vote so you could build communities within steemit.
Great post keep up the good work!
Oh yes, there are many opportunities for improvement here - it seems that Steemit Inc. are focused on improving the infrastructure and less on the user experience currently - I can understand why, but I also think it wouldn't hurt to put a bit more dev time into the UI too.