Technology-wise the Steem blockchain can only surprise people either new to crypto or coming from a slow and/or expensive "currency-only" crypto like old BTC - for them, Steem will be a revelation, but for experienced people in the blockchain sphere, I really doubt that...

I'm new to blockchain development and like you said Steem feels like a revelation to me. I think we can build a lot of stuff on top of the current Steem blockchain without any hard-forks. For example, have a look at the vapor-chain protocol which allows to create tokens without any modifications to the blockchain.