In my very personal opinion, Steemit still lacks a lot. A lot of users would hate me for saying this, but it's the truth and I say it as someone who loves the platform.
For example, the voting bots, I stopped using them because I thought it was not the right thing to do, but now I notice how many users got their reputation and SP just by using said bots (when it was worth to use them). Now it's not very profitable to use them, but these people still have their SP and no one judges them for having used bots.
In fact, most contests and opportunities withing the platform prioritize users with more reputation. The same ones who say bots are bad are the ones who support them.
On the other side cronyism is something that exists in abundance and everyone knows it (reason why I'm not very engaged on discord groups). However this doesn't mean the platform is bad, just missing some real value.

It's very interesting what you say. I will keep with this phrase "keeping busy. Experimenting, contributing, looking around where the pennies are "
greetings!