I never bother looking at the Trending, Hot, and Promoted pages. If it was up to me, the introductory page would feature New, Promoted, and Curated pages. New and Promoted be the same as what they are now except that Promoted would include all posts that are paying out because of big upvotes from the known paid upvote bots as well as the ones that are promoted through the other means.

The Curated page would feature hand curated posts. There are some pretty good curation groups that are active on Steemit now. Their regular posts are full of good content that would make a good impression on newcomers.