All good points. STEEM does suck at the moment, and the chances of it getting fixed are small. Like you, I've been here a while and remember the joy of a post getting $50-100. The dopamine hit of that tends to cover up the deficiencies of the system for a while, but the reality is now those sort of payouts are long gone. So new users are stuck getting cents or if their lucky a couple of dollars, and will sooner or later give up I imagine.

I'm interested in seeing what MEOS does when it comes out, I'm sure the economics and design will be much more robust, and I think enough disillusioned Steemers will jump ship to leave STEEM a second-rate competitor.