Well, I think you have made cited out brilliant ideas but below are my points and suggestions;

I had been thinking that maybe Steem Inc should consider implementing a cut on payouts rather than implementing ads (which is the suggestion of many) but I have come to realize that Steem seems to be a dead bead at the moment and would not generate much income that is needed. So, maybe ads might helpful and preferable.

Moreover, Ned did transfer all his Steem holdings to an exchange, I think bittrex. I am kind of wondering the fate of that huge amount of money presently.

Also, With some witnesses already talking about disabling their witness thread due high cost of operations and maintenance, I feel it is time to make some adjustments to the rewards for witnesses located outside top 20. As an example @fbslo did complain with this post

Talking about a consensus voting on which project to support and how much money to be allocated to a project sounds a brilliant idea and might be for those who are running a project or those who plan to run a project on the steem blockchain. I think Ned and Steemit Inc cannot accept to be part of this because they might feel hard done if their project is not approved. Taking his project "Destiny" as an example, he is yet to reveal what it is all about and how he plans to go about it.

Moreover, when you mentioned other blockchain, Tron comes to my mind and this is definitely because of the recent Twitter blast. I cannot my place my hands on how Steem can operate in conjunction with another blockchains without having disruptive problems in future. But if all this is possible, this might just be a perfect solution to this SMT stories.

Thank you for this opportunity to express myself.