This is really well written and I pretty much agree with or have been pondering the same things for a very long time.

I think that the "ninja-mine" situation you mention is certainly a dark cloud over STEEM from the people who were in crypto in mid 2016 and got on the platform and got a bad taste of it from the start. Over coming that reputation of being a "whale hangout" has been extremely hard to overcome. I think the new people to crypto get on here and take a swing at it with mixed results. When people do the math on how much they would have to power up to gain an amount of influence that would make a difference here the math doesn't seem amazing. A lot of people are more enticed by sticking their money in these ponzi schemes out there because that is the promise of passive income where as this is somewhat passive with curation rewards but if someone really wants to earn they have to put in work and blog to utilize their power.

I have often wondered as well why Steemit Inc isn't using all that money to do some heavy marketing. Really when it boils down to it the situation ended up being very lucrative for @ned and @dan and @ned will be able to pay himself a good salary and have a team of people working at Steemit Inc for a very long time. I don't have a problem with this and if the goal was to get rich they certainly did well.

I think for each person the reasons they aren't powering up more or able to engage more in the ecosystem just depends. I have often liked coins I could mine that had good fundamentals and it made me feel like a more useful part of the system. With STEEM I have the technical capabilities to become a witness but the reason I haven't done it yet is because I know I will be really pissed off if it is unprofitable because no one with power will vote for me. I even said in a comment of a prominent users blog that I was going to set up a witness node soon. He said "we already have enough backup witnesses." It sort of pissed me off that I would already be a backup regardless of my technical abilities but it is the truth. If you don't have power or people with power to vote for you then it isn't going to happen. If I had $100,000 to power up would it make sense and would it matter? ..... mmmmmmm not in the case of being a witness.

In the end I think the price of STEEM can rise some and there are a lot of positive things happening here but I often wonder if it will ever thrive like it should be able to considering all the advantages which you mentioned.

I really can't complain too much. I got to emotionally caught up in this project and things that weren't going to change but now that I have diversified a lot more I don't get hung up on what is going on here as much.

Also I think the downward pressure of people cashing out earnings is overcoming the benefit of being powered up. Maybe the SMT situation can put things in the favor of buying pressure but I really can't say for sure. I feel like it can.

I think STEEM will always be here but will it retake a spot in the top 5 where it should be? It would ultimately be up to Steemit Inc to do a very big marketing push since they hold so much power in this system.