I personally wouldn't accept Steem in exchange for the work I do outside of the Steem network. It's too volatile for my taste. (I would accept Steem as a payment method but would not be willing to price my work in Steem or hold it after the transaction) I think Steem Power is a really great long-term investment though. It's especially good if you use the platform because then you are partially investing in yourself.
As far as gold is concerned, the transaction fees in gold crypto don't bother me because they are so small. For example, AgAu gold charges 0.1%: https://bit.ly/2JPSX9A That's a lot better than the 2.4% to 4% charged by Paypal. Unfortunately though, there are no exchange-traded gold-backed cryptos yet. I am waiting for AgAu gold to come out early next year.
For now, I am still accepting Paypal payments from clients. But I look forward to the day when everyone around me is accepting crypto, whether it be in the form of GUSD, TUSD, PAX, AgAu gold, Steem, Bitcoin or whatever. Worse case scenario, if I don't like whatever cryptocurrency they are accepting, I can wait until the actual transaction to buy that particular crypto. After all, it's easy to switch from one crypto to another, but a lot slower and more costly to switch from fiat to crypto and back (or from one fiat currency to another). So I'd rather pay in any crypto rather than fiat.