I played with newly launched AKASHA alpha app (windows) with posting several and commenting one. Here are my feelings.

Good

1. Medium style editor is cool
   Although personally I prefer simple markdown styles, Medium style editor in AKASHA also seems cool
2. Adding image is really good
   Unlike Steemit, you don't need to upload jpg or png to image hosting site and copy/paste the link. Just upload then all set.
3. Focusing on SNS feature
   AKASHA hides each account's balance and other info that do not related with social networking. This is what Steemit needs to learn. AKASHA doesn't reveal each account's balance info in their app (while they can be found in the blockchain with more efforts). This makes people less compare with others and have unnecessary negative feelings.

Bad

1. Too slow
   Every activity(transaction) takes over 10 seconds, sometimes 20 or so. I think it cannot be compared with Steem's 3-sec.
2. You need to sync the whole blockchain
   The alpha is using its own testnet (with about 75000 blocks), so syncing doesn't take long. I didn't measure accurately but felt about 2~3 minutes. But syncing over 2 million blocks with many transactions (the main net) will take much longer, and will be horrible.
3. Expensive
   While Mihai mentioned that the code is not fully optimized, it is still expensive. With under 10 transactions (one tag creating, one commenting, and 5 posting), I spent about 0.1 ETH ($0.73), and I remember a short post costs 0.0176 ETH ($0.13). And a vote costs 0.0042 ETH ($0.03).

Short Conclusion

From the perspective of UI/UX, AKASHA seems good so far. But it needs to overcome fundamental weaknesses, such as high costs and low speed.