My solution is in the tags.

I've only ever seen Steemit as a proof of concept of what is possible on the STEEM blockchain. I believe that the solution comes from a combination of what both you and @walden were talking about. I believe that we need a new interface that gamifies social interaction in a more productive manner, but we also need the founding members of the platform to set the tone as well.

Communities will help to play a larger role in this as I'm currently already planning one that caters to the @informationwar community, and then you're also somewaht involved in the memeit.lol community. Both of these have the correct approach of further gamifying things in a manner that incentivises social interaction while cultivating the skill level of the users in hopefully in a better direction than current