From my point of view, there's absolutely no difference between STEEM now and when it was valued at $8+. The only major update was change to the RC system from bandwidth.

That being said, other coins have perhaps developed more during the past two years. I think it's less a case of STEEM losing its mojo, and more of the entire space "contracting" in preparation for another huge influx of corporate money to fuel the next moonshot.

As far as the ranking slipping on CMC, I find it fairly irrelevant, as a large number of coins in the top 100 have little active utility, mostly relying on speculation for their value.

The only difference between a bear and a bull market is the direction of the parabola, and the perception that a higher valuation is "good" and a lower one is "bad."

And then, the attendant animal passions those perceptions stimulate in the collective and individual consciousnesses in a quantum memetic/amplificatory fashion.