It's cool to hear about this from a veteran. I've been around steemit for the past 2-3 weeks. And even though there is a lot of "trashy" content, and bots and what not, yet i still think steemit is at the moment a very unique platform. The Elite i believe are always tempted to offer their best content, as is the case with any platform, more so with steemit.
Still I agree with you there definitely is room for improvement. Might be worth it to suggest some improvement ideas, and then possibly even run this by witnesses/create a lobby for it and see if it kicks off.
Yes, Steemit is unique at the moment, maybe only Golos is an alternative, but it's basically the same principle applies there, it's just run by Russians. We have a long way to go, just stick around.