I too feel like there is something substantial missing in our cohesive collaborative efforts, but I haven't yet tuned into the answer. So since I don't really now how to amp it up, I continue to build community, one post and one artist at a time. I feel there is a very clever answer which has yet to come to me.

I feel your suggestion about collaboration with artists of many genres coming together is very doable, someone just needs to have an inspired project and instigate it.

I'm not very familiar with the curators like @curie, it does feel quite difficult to be seen, and many well thought out and prepared posts go unnoticed. Most people won't go back to older posts, reply to them, and especially not upvote them, so their value seems to wane in a few short hours. I would love it if there was a way to continue to upvote older posts so that content can retain its value over time, but I'm not savvy enough on the way things work to really suggest or enact change in that regard. I do, however, feel that would help A LOT to keep valuable content, no matter when it was written, on the surface to be seen.

Gratefully Steemit is still evolving and as we become more experienced and have a greater scope on what is possible, it will become more user friendly and open new avenues we don't presently have and opportunities we don't yet even know are possible.

I too have been on discord @alexandravart. I find it a dark and dismal place too, I imagine because I don't really know how to navigate it well and have not taken the time or interest to do so. There is a lot happening there for sure that I have yet to embrace, but it feels like a distraction to me as one could get lost in there!! I see you are on discord to talk about these things. When I hear discord I hear scratching on chalkboards!! I'd be happy for a room in Steemit Chat where conversation could be had simply.