While not a complete alternative in the direction of what we talked about, but the best one I've found so far is SteemPeak. It has a modern interface and has a lot more features than steemit.com.
I just tested it right now and it looks and feels awesome. ;) Maybe you know it and even use it already, but if not, try it out.
@sumatranate you might want to take a look at it too. ;)
There's a review on it here.
Hey Yeah I am in fact writing most of my articles on steempeak! It is a really great site to use!