Good article. Steemit Inc. not showing up is actually accelerating the Steem decentralization.

we are to get an announcement from 1 of these individuals by the end of this month about his progress on this endeavor to bring tokens to the Steem blockchain without the need of Steemit, Inc.

I think you're talking about the VaporChain protocol from @fulltimegeek to create tokens on top of Steem blockchain:

https://steemit.com/vaporchain/@fulltimegeek/a-cursory-overview-of-how-vaporchains-work