The volatility is a separate issue. Volatility is a function of either high demand, low product volume, or very large changes in the overall sentiment of things. The key reason why volatility will reduce in steem as it grows is that more accounts will have more and more coins locked up in steem power. This will cause stabilty. Also why its locked into a 13 week vesting schedule. Dont forget that before it was 13 weeks, it was 10 months!

As far as fees go, thats a unique thing to all cryptos. Unfortunately, commerce for someone who is interested in taking SBD is great, but if they are just interested in taking in SBD and then converting it over, they would have problems. This is always going to be true for any currency, as long as it is not your home currency. The solution to this is a larger SBD only based net work, where you are spend the sbd you earn only.