I've been here on Steem since the beginning. I've complained about this many times before but it seems that the devs don't understand how practical a good notification center would be for users. It took way too long to get even those red square notifications.
Authors like you would probably benefit a great deal if your audience would be able to get notified when you post new content. And users would benefit when they could modify how they will get notified for different things. It would be a big win for both sides.