Would giving that same 25% to a person/cause in need here on Steemit be a better use of that "burnt" crypto? Technically, it doesn't pull the coin out of circulation, but it does go to good use...There has to be some medium ground on that somewhere where the coin doesn't get "wasted."

Theoretically, nothing is wasted. The value from the burned tokens gets spread out among all the other STEEM/SP/SBD, in the form of higher prices, so the value doesn't go away. Just as much value would still be available for charitable causes.

In practice, of course, there are many other factors in play - so it might or might not work out that way.

I'm generally suspicious of Steem's charitable initiatives, though, except in a few cases where the organizer has established a reputation and provides strong transparency. I've seen too many "fly by night" initiatives over the years, where people took advantage of peoples' empathy.

GitHub is one #rabbithole I haven't visited yet in terms of learning.

On github, I wasn't really expecting you to install it. Just demonstrating that it exists. One of these days, maybe I'll learn how to package these up for the chrome extension store. The way I have the extensions now, some technical background is needed. It's less than ideal.