What does Steemit NEED to improve going forward?

With all the new traffic from korea, new members joining everday and Steemq on the way the website is bound to go through tons of changes. Steemit is a great site we can all agree, but there is still much that can be modified or improved. I'm here today to try and suggest some of those things and also get some idea of what you guys think should change.

I've broken it down into 5 features that need to be tweaked or added: Better feeds, Messages, Search Optimization, Notifications and Moderators.

1. MESSAGES
   As I see it, this is the first and easiest thing that should be added. Chat is all and great, but I don't see it often used and I don't know if many even know it is there. I believe a messaging system would make communication between authors much easier, and it would be much easier to reach out to people. I'm sure big whales may be against this cause it just becomes a mailbox full of spam for them, but for us minnows it would give us a way better way to coordinate and communicate.

2. NEWS FEEDS
   This one is more opinionated to me, but the news feed has to be revamped somehow. As is, there is no way to be notified of when a particular person you follow has posted something. If you just happen to miss it you could go days without seeing the post or miss it entirely. Maybe adding a series of @s on the right side that would inform you on who's new content you haven't seen yet or missed. It's not as big a problem when you have 20 people you follow, but with 100 or 200 I'm sure it becomes impossible to always keep up with your favorite content creators.
   *EDIT - Also a way to unsteem resteemed content?

3. SEARCH BAR
   Sorry to drop this bomb but, the search bar is crap. It's poorly optimized and doesn't get you anywhere in terms of finding specific articles about what you search. It also pulls you to a separate window, making the whole thing just seem very awkward and tedious. I find I'm better off using google when looking for articles.

4. NOTIFICATIONS
   For the most part, they're fine. My only issue is mentions. There's an obvious section for replies, but there is no way to go back and check when or where you were mentioned or who has resteemed your content. When notifications pop they also aren't clickable which again just seems awkward and tedious as it forces you to go back to blog, then your replies and go from there.

5. MODERATORS
   Finally, the most important, moderators. As more people join Steemit and more people begin creating content, we are going to get more spam and more cheap ploys for votes. I personally don't think that meme pages or model spam pages have a place on steemit, if you create your own memes/comics or post your own modeling photos, great! But if these people are coming to Steemit and thinking they can open an account, steal memes or pictures of cute girls from google images, give no credit and then post these to their Steemit blog with no further commentary or personal contribution that can be deemed content, they need to be taught they can't. I'm all for grabbing an image from google here and there or whatever, but if that's all your blog is that doesn't fly with me. These people should be demonetized by moderators and forced to either stop producing content or change their format. I feel if we don't actively cull the herd we find ourselves in a gutter of shitposts and rehashes by the same people who want to hear about steemit and try to make money quick off other peoples generic content by posting it here.

So what do you guys think? Do you agree or disagree with my suggestions or do you think there are better ways to implement or improve these features going forward?

Comment and let me know, and don't forget to upvote and !

@steemit @steem @blockchain @life @cryptocurrency @technology @improvements @steemq @popularity @popular @growingnumbers @changes @enhance @search @messages @newsfeed @moderators @notifications