There are hundreds of ways to improve content discovery but since Steemit.com has been at this same stage for the last two years I think it's futile to suggest them any, no matter how obvious or simple to implement it is.
The Trending page is a complete mess right now, has been for a while, but it wouldn't be such a big deal if there had been more thought/work put into offering different ways to discover content.
I couldn't agree more! This is the key problem and the most important thing you mentioned in the post. I hope it will change but I dont think it will. not soon.