Love your response here. And I agree with you a decent amount.

• There are certainly a ton of low quality posts in the "New" section, but I think once these users realize they aren't getting anywhere either they will improve their content or leave the platform.
• HF19 I've found detrimental in terms of fewer eyeballs and upvotes. However, what has helped is now my SP allows me to upvote others with more value so I've joined a couple of curation trails to help out and spread the love as much as possible.
• Trolls come to every successful platform and they'll only continue coming.

Steemit has to figure out how to govern the Rich Whales down to the Lowly Minnows better. But, as they says, come for the money, stay for the community, which is essentially want turned me from pure investor in STEEM to actually participating.

Steemit really feels like the social network of the late 1990's (i.e. LiveJournal) with few features, low-fi look and feel, and a small community of passionate individuals. Honestly it's refreshing from the complicated mess that has become our standard social media services.