I having a little deja vu right now, because I think we've either commented about the first bullet point or I read a post you wrote about it. :)

Yeah, I've whined about it a few times before, lol.

What adds to the problem is, the system is designed to vote for others.

Yeah, it always bothered me so many seemed most concerned with their immediate profits. I've always wished I could give out more votes than within my ability, which was why I rented so much delegation my first year on Steem. Hoping more see it this time.

We seem to attract the folks with no other way to get paid to build an app, and their abilities seem less than optimal in too many cases

Yeah, it always felt most of them were coming up with schemes to get their hands of Steem using the app, not using it to complement their business. Such a huge mistake, and of little to no benefit to the chain. I'm surprised no one has put together an arcade of games the way Facebook does and make all game tokens for specials be Steem/Hive. I had hoped someone might using the Steemengine tokens, or using SMT if they ever released them, in case they wanted their own branded tokens. I'm hopeful we will see this kind of diversity coming soon too.

If you haven't traded your Steem yet, now is a good time. I just traded more as there appears to be a dump on Hive taking place now. Traded 50 Steem for 77.29 Hive on Ionomy. I hope the dump is still ongoing whenever they decide to get me some of that stimulus they say we are getting. Figure if it lasts till summer I might be whatever fish one gets called for hitting 5k staked.