I understand.
Problem it that most exchanges wants listing fees that can be up to tens of thousands dollars. 1,000 MV witness vote would give up to 5 SP per week more to low ran witness, so it's not worth to spend 10,000$ to list STEEM for only 1GV vote. Even top 20 witnesses get only $2k per month now.
Creating your own token and getting that listed on an exchange was not the challenge.
The problem is that many exchanges don't list coins, only ERC20 tokens, so it's impossible to list STEEM. They are mostly smaller exchanges, but even if they have only 100k users each, it's something. I know it's not the same as STEEM.
Why don’t you talk with Ned? As a witness, you can be one of the three executives that communicate with the exchange.
I already filled one listing form at some smaller exchange, I'm waiting for their reply.
By the way the low returns as a witness is due in part by price of STEEM. It would be a different story if the price of STEEM were $10 or $20. There is more value in participating than just the witness votes.