Is there a specific mistake of EOS you're thinking of? Or is it just a lack of on-chain governance? It is my understanding that the EOS constitution could be amended to include that in the future. As it is with EOS roughly following the Steemit model I think we have something that is a happy compromise between a completely automated on-chain system, the risks of a susceptible benevolent dictator in Ethereum, and economic and environmental disaster of miners uber-alles Bitcoin. I guess we'll just have to see how the community-blockproducer-constitution system works out.
I don't follow the governance side of Steemit too closely but I feel like it is reasonably successful - other than the internal economics that could skew how the message gets out when we need to vote for producers, plus the ability to game the system with multiple accounts.
Do Tezos or Tau do anything to try and create strong identity?