The recent outage for 10+ hours with no real announcement or changes to the landing page notifying users of such was a bit of a wake up call.

100 percent. I said that last outage too, why is there not something on Steemit's front page? Sticky note "from the desk of Ned" telling everyone what happened. I get details on these things from witnesses who bought votes so their posts would be visible. That is not how a community should be notified