SMTs and communities will create solutions to the filtering and exposure problems you mentioned. They will never be addressed on SteemIt.com, I look at SteemIt.com as just a rather basic proof of concept.
With SMTs and communities it will allow new sites with their own tokens, and their specific type of content, to filter and expose the content in the way that is best for that community.
The best part is that if you don't like how a particular site or community operates, you're free to create your own that's better!
Yeah, but Joe Schmoe isn't going to create their own website. They are going to go back to Reddit or Facebook. I'm also still skeptical on the value of SMTs themselves. I understand why they add value to Steem, but we'll see how they valuable they are themselves.
I just wish Steemit would focus on communities before SMTs. In terms of business, people are more important than technology.