RE: Where have all the intelligent Steemians gone?
I agree with you on the point of the feed being an issue. Even following just a few dozen people I find my feed to be cumbersome to sort through. What would really help is an interface in which you can filter/target by user-tag combinations, e.g. I only want contest posts from this person, I only want math posts from that person, but I'll take everything from this really smart person, etc.
Another thing (and this is more specific to your Pangaea post) is that readers may have gone through an article but have not had the time to go through the accompanying videos or other media yet. Furthermore it's possible that even after going through everything they may feel that they cannot contribute to the discussion in a meaningful way, therefore they won't comment.
Thanks for the feedback.
It seems I'm not alone in suggesting the Steemit platform needs better filters.
As for the comments on posts such as the Pangaea post: it isn't just a lack of comments... there is an eye icon that shows how many have opened the post to read it. When you see just 5, you know only 5 people looked at it.