I like your belief man because you don't revert to cultish lingo, that which toastmaster4000 refers to as "Hive maximalist". You are very honest about everything. I agree with you completely on the comment rewards. If blockhead is thinking of getting rid of curation rewards then they should at least trial a strictly social engagement system. Engage is already that but somewhat of a 'limp dick' thing, so to give real hard rewards would drive community exponentially.

I actually fell in love (for a short period) with steemit on that very concept way back. I used to read suesa posts and found them very interesting so I would leave thoughtful comments. Then blockhead rewarded me once $10 and I thought "damn this shit has potential!" Little did I know though that it was just automated voting lol... and worse still, once he launched the service of blocktrades he didn't give out any more lollies. Even suesa got ditched like a beaten piñata!

Regardless though, I've always maintained that comment engagements mentality, I think people appreciate when you actually read their posts and reflect on the value they put in. So that's why I critique the lack of chat as a major flaw of Hive.

So yeah like you said, there's work to do still but then the other thing I still see as a negative is that the coders here are all about "if I build it, I need payment NOW!" either through HDF our by taking a beneficiary percentage of those that use those services.

I see that as broken because if its about the long game and those buying in now won't get rewards until Hive succeeds (price pump) then coders too must weather the hard times and accept rations until the thing gets that growth and exposure. That's just my view though, people obviously commit full time so they have overheads.

Anyway... all in all.
All we can do is let time tell the tale.