They chose a different approach. I am not sure yet if it is a wise one, but it could be...

I think they want to cater to the investors first, then get everyone and their uncle on board.
This HF is clearly hurting onboarding new small accounts and it is done on purpose.
We need to push the price up to get FOMO again, then they can proceed with exponential growth of the userbase. Imagine if Steem is worth 10$ for a prolonged period of time because investors love the coin. Every small account >500 SP will be able to make a decent buck.