I could not agree with you more. I have not a single negative thing to say about SteemPeak ... except I haven't been using it for the very reasons you stated. I dread having to learn the interface but I will because Luke is right about this.
Minimalism is the very goal we strived for with the Steemhouse Literary Journal site as well. I kept saying over and over and over: "Just the stories. Nothing in the sidebars. Nothing flashing. Nothing to distract." We finally got it live to my satisfaction, but I had to fight tooth and nail to keep the design clean. Everybody likes bells and whistles, it seems, except for me, and you, I suppose.
Yeah I really love simplicity and I think something as complicated as Steem should be easy for the everyday person to jump on board at first...
Get them to poke around and learn what is what....Then graduate to more in depth and feature rich front ends.
Exactly.