Many observations are damn right here.
It is actually a lottery, because number of votes is unrelated to earnings, it's all about catching the right voters and right timing. I hope they will improve the system somehow.

But no need to find someone smart enough to create a similar platform, as they released the entire project as open source: https://steemit.com/steemit/@steemitblog/steemit-com-is-now-open-source