Hi @shortsegments thank you for your valuable input. You are one of the existing users that still actively contributing value here in steem community. I'm glad that you chose to be more active here. Your knowledge about steem is far better than me and your experience with the community too. We can count on you for counsel.

Communities are fabulous on Steemit and I commend the community leaders for trying to take many new account holders “under their wing” and mentor them, comment on their posts and provide them upvote

I totally agree with you on this. Actually, I hope that community leaders go to Newcomers Community and start "fishing" any newcomers that have the same interest as what their community is doing. Achievement 1 in the Newcomers Achievement Program is for the newcomers to introduce themselves and presenting their skills and interests. Any proactive community leaders should skim through these newcomers and invite them to join their community. I'm actually a little bit disappointed none of them doing that yet, but the Steem Greeters team members doing their best promoting the communities that available now on steem for them to join.

Yes, its time consuming building a community, but once the community members being loyal and feel that they belong here, and do whatever it takes to make this community thrive, that is the most valuable asset of steem blockchain...