Yes, Rome was not built in a day.  The SteemIt platform is a little over two years old.  SteemIt Inc. has been focused on the STEEM blockchain for the past year or so preparing to roll out SMTs.
When I first started on SteemIt "volunteerism" was a huge topic among the very early users.  This is somewhat reflected in the applications being developed that will use SMTs on the STEEM blockchain.  Instead of one person or entity trying to come up with a killer app on the STEEM blockchain, SMTs will allow anyone (with the skills) to create killer apps. [APPICS](https://appics.com/) is one such app using the Smart Media Token XAP.  With the standup of the SMT testnet [APPICS is in a test mode](https://steemit.com/life/@appics/appics-update-or-join-the-appics-app-for-ios-and-android).  One of the SMT apps could become the Twitter or Facebook killer.
After the launch of SMTs next year, SteemIt Inc. will hopefully turn their attention back to the SteemIt platform and introduce new user experiences like communities.

I will warn you about experimenting with downvoting.  It is easy to start "downvoting wars" on SteemIt when you downvote a person's post.  What really triggers some users is a downvote without any explanation as to why a blog post was downvoted.  Downvoting can reduce a person's payout on a blog post and their reputation score.

I think there is much to be improved for the way the trending page on SteemIt works.  I have seen some suggestions on how to update it.  Personally, I feel this can be made better by looking at the number of users upvoting a post.  Maybe there should be one trending for post value and another trending for number of upvotes.  But this is a fine balance, because those who invested in a lot of SP want to make sure there vote/stake in the STEEM blockchain counts.   In a lot of ways it is like shares in a company.  The people with the greatest number of shares (stake) in the company want to have an impact.

As with any blockchain and platform the underlying algorithms are mathematical.  Many of the early users and adopters of SteemIt come from the blockchain and gaming communities.  As long as there are systems there will always be ways of gaming a system.  Practically any system will have clever people making bots to game the system.

I should tell you there is also another reason I use bidbots.  I typically do not upvote my own posts right away.  I try to wait until my post is about 24 hours old before I upvote it.  (There are some bidbots that only upvote newly created posts.) This allows those following my blog post around the world to decide whether they will upvote my blog post or not.  By upvoting my blog post before I apply bidbots gives more curation rewards to those who upvoted my blog post before me.  And applying bidbots only increases the curation rewards for everyone who upvoted my blog post.  Even though I am taking a chance of losing money using bidbots, I like the fact that it is a way to increase the curation rewards.

I watch the number of active user metrics on the SteemIt platform too.  I have seen the involvement of the community go down when the STEEM price goes down.  And the number of active users increase when the STEEM price increases.  While there are other factors influencing the retention of active users, the STEEM price seems to be one of the factors.  I think the STEEM price going down greatly affects the involvement of active users in developed (1st world) countries.  On the other hand, I have personally witnessed a growth in users from country's where hyperinflation exists.  I think Hard Fork #20 will help them by allowing anyone to power down (regardless of how much SP they have) and earn an income from SteemIt.

Here's a tip:  Do not stop posting or commenting on SteemIt to earn SP just because the price goes down.  When the price recovers the SP you earn is worth more.  I see so many people stop posting when the price of STEEM goes down.  If you believe in the platform, you should always be accumulating for when the price recovers.

2019 is looking like another great year for STEEM, SteemIt and cryptocurrencies.

Have a great weekend!
Steem on,
Mike