I have also taken a look at a few other platforms like Minds, Narrative (which is still very early on), and was waiting on ONO English. I lost interest in all of them and have become very devoted to be a part of STEEM's success.

I'm much newer to this platform than you (6 months) so I think I don't get as discouraged by things that can seem like devolution to old timers, but have always been here for me. I've never cared what was on Trending. I started off searching for tags that interested me, and quickly found writers I like to read who were willing to engage with me. That set my STEEM experience off on a great track, and no amount of bidbots, trending pages, or self-voting whales has ever detracted from my opinion of the place.

I think it's good to recalibrate expectations so that where STEEM really is in its development is seen more beta. We are still so early on. And yes, HD20 where people won't have to start on the clunky steemit website and also STEEM stops being thought of as steemit in the broader world's "mind" will all be a huge part of that.

There are actually 400+ STEEM dapps right now, though only about a dozen are full fledged UIs like steemhunt, dtube, etc. We stand at the initial stages of something truly unique that has strong first mover's advantages.