Many seem to point at active authors and keep saying how the changes have made everyone post less, leave altogether,

I don't know for sure, but I would bet a lot of the people posting less and leaving were only the ROI hunters. The ones that never engages, rarely voted for other peoples content, and hardly if at all ever left a real comment on someone else's post.

Most people like a reward, they are nice to get, but I think the majority of people left on steem now, are the ones that grew tired and wary of the old school social media sites, and are hoping stemm block chain is able to survive and up the ante so to speak for social interaction.

More and more of the hidden under the radar ROI-Hunters only are being found now that the pool of them has narrowed because of the EIP.