I completely agree with you on the app. To the extent that I don't use it. I only go on steemit when I am at my computer.
Maybe some of my writing can enter your "third-graders home work assignment" tag. However, I don't proclaim to be a journalist, just using this more as a blog than anything else and a bit of networking. Is there any way to see the amount of users on steemit?
Plagiarism is an issue, I think that if steemit wanted to they could easily (albeit costly) intergrade a plagiarism program into the site such as 'turn-it-in' which a lot of universities now use or checking students work and doesn't automatically discredit the written but shows where they may have got the information from and can give you a percentage of what it believes is copied.