I'll try to say this as respectfully as I can...

These changes have been deployed to production for several days now, and we have seen a dramatic improvement in the efficiency of read requests from the Steemit website to the blockchain to retrieve data.

Perhaps this may partially be attributed to the fact that so many could not get a post or vote through, and after numerous attempts many people likely just gave up.

On the plus side, there are a bunch of alternative condensers (STEEMIT's front-end) that have popped up as backups, so if there are continued problems with STEEMIT's website, at least people have the choice of still interacting with the STEEMIT blockchain via the interface they're already familiar with.

If you do use an alternate condenser however, make sure it's hosted by a community member you trust. And as an additional precaution, it's best to sign in using only your POSTING key.

And with that, please pass the Bordeaux! :)