I've been reading up on the whole Poloniex situation for the last month or so, not a good look to say the least. While I see situations like this bring up the very valid point of installing some form of regulatory oversight in the crypto space, I always root for the free market to solve these problems on it's own by competition providing the solutions. Nonetheless, it's a very painful process in the short term.

You bring up the very important topic of all the currencies being too closely associated with BTC. This is why I've seen all other coins to this point as simply derivatives of BTC. While technically speaking this shouldn't be the case b/c each coin should be looked at individually according to it's own merits and utility, but until individual coins are able to be traded directly for fiat and not have to use BTC as a medium of exchange, I see this issue unfortunately persisting. I do see this changing with time though as some coins separate themselves from the pack and can be looked upon with more confidence. The more coins we can exchange directly to and from fiat, the more useful they become to the average person on an every day basis. You've touched on this beautifully with SBDs and how they can serve this function for Steemit within the blockchain. We just need to enable Steem to be more easily exchanged in and out of fiat and then we'll see the true value of Steemit be realized.

Great post on some very important topics. Have a great weekend!
BTW, You asked how old I am, I'm 43 brother.