I agree with you wholeheartedly on the layout issue! I love the concept behind Steemit, and I do believe that there are TONS of interesting writers, artists, photographers, and bloggers on this platform. The problem I see is the difficulty in finding them!

The search function sucks. I have a difficult time finding my own previous posts. It should be a simple keyword search, but that usually turns up a bunch of random stuff with 10 items per page. It's impossible to comb through. I end up endlessly scrolling down the page through 3 years of posts (which takes a while on my high speedHughesNet connection) and then hitting 'command+f'.

The only way to find content that I want to see is if I am already following the author. Otherwise, you are stuck scrolling through the 'Trending' and 'New' categories. I think the reason all of the crypto posts are so visible on the site is because many of the early adopters were into crypto, and they are now the whales who steer this front end of the ship.

Like I said, I love the concept of Steem, and I am confident that Steemit will eventually get the optics right OR someone else will develop a better front end for the blogging/social media aspects of the blockchain. Regardless, I personally feel like I have found my little niche here, and the homestead community is pretty awesome! I think I've found my digital home here on the Steem blockchain... even it is a bit tough to navigate.