Personally, I think all the Ether will be refunded after 1 year, the ETH is being collected to make users care more about HEX, it's a brilliant marketing strategy. I think steem needs the products like communities and SMTs released first, and then all they will have on their plate is marketing. I think steem also has a chance to benefit from Bitcoin going up in value, more so than other blockchains.

HEX has been in development almost as long as SMTs