I've been here on Steem less than 2 weeks, and I agree with most of the suggestions you made, @creativetruth. There's some clunkiness here, though having no programming background myself, I just cross my fingers and hope that those who understand this can/will make it better.

And... I also agree with @spiritualmax that there are a lot of good, if imperfect, elements here on this platform, and there are ways around the troublesome bots and phishing (just ignore them, and search out my peeps in the channels that appeal to me). When I think of how many years it took for me to build my Friend base on Facebook, I think I can be patient and watch how my Steemit experience unfolds. :-)