After a strong start on Steem-Engine and activating the Steemit.com clones and, in some cases the DTube clones, tribes kinda stopped or slowed down developing their own identities, as 
By identity I don't necessarily mean the type of content it supports and what is not allowed, plus the filtering that goes with this.
This is important of course. But just as important it is to have your own visual identity, that sets you aside from the other clones, as well as special benefits.
One thing I remarked recently was the commitment of the ReggaeSteem tribe to bring value to their tribe by setting up certain touristic deals with their local Jamaican resorts. Check out the deals they made where JAHM or JSNS can be used to pay for the stay and additional benefits! Now... that's more than a cloned interface!
There are other tribes which I've seen offer a ROI to stakeholders in STEEM or SBD.
I believe SCT pays out dividends, and, far as I know, recently SCT author rewards can only be earned when posting through their interface. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't closely follow the SCT tribe, I just remember reading this information somewhere. If I'm not wrong, that's a way to make your tribe members use your own interface.
I've noticed SteemAce started to pay out benefits to stakeholders as well.
I would still work on customizing the interface, and that's true for every tribe as far as I know. Some tribes made some minor changes to the user interface, and even those are noticeable compared to the standard clones.
Additional benefits matter, because, besides the content and your visual identity, it's what sets you aside from the other tribes. Should they be unique to your tribe? Not necessarily, they can also be found elsewhere. As long as they are very handy to your tribe members, who don't have to go elsewhere to find that information or benefit, that's good for you.
It's not really a tribe if all tribe members stay separately, is it?
It's not the first time I am wondering if some tribes are just waiting for the Communities to arrive to see where to go from there.
What will happen when they will finally be here?
Will the existing tribes create matching communities on Steem?
Will some of them migrate to the new communities and restart over there? Let's keep in mind that to migrate SMTs are also needed, Communities are not enough.
Will they remain loyal to the tribe+token setup and other communities with similar interests will be created on Steem?
There is still time until Communities arrive. Even more time until SMTs will be here on the mainnet. This time should not be wasted by existing tribes, in my opinion, because momentum will be lost.
