I agree that the 7 day payout period puts a lot of stress on SteemIt. Since the early beginning of the platform, thousands of extremely valuable articles have been written. After those 7 days, they simply disappear in the dungeons of SteemIt, together with all the crap.
It’s a shame the authors of those articles lose the ability to be rewarded for their efforts and quality content.
I don’t know enough about the possibilities of SMTs, but if it would be possible to somehow change this, I think it would make SteemIt more attractive to people who post quality content.
But hey... what do I know?? ;0)