I found the research interesting and found it both surprising and unsurprising.

The "Steemit dream" is sold based upon rewards. The rewards that most people see are unrealistic so when they don't get them, they leave.

I don't think the Steemit interface has changed since Steemit was launched. There's certainly a lot of room for improvement in that regard and people haven't been complaining about it since I joined, about 3 years ago.

In general, I think that people join with high expectations - normally with regards to rewards. To be successful, I think you've really got to enjoy writing... enjoy researching a topic and perhaps most importantly... enjoy reading and commenting upon the work of others, like you have done here.

Timely comments is a tricky one - we're all in different time zones (I know that it's the middle of the night where you are) and then most of us have busy lives.