Forgive me for re-visiting an old comment, but I thought I'd solicit your wisdom once more. I'm excited about BitShares but have had a hard time with its system to deposit fiat USD. I ended up creating a Kraken account to buy some BTC with my USD, then it'll be much easier to deposit funds (other than Steem) into BitShares.
I made a blog post a little about my experience. If you had a moment to give a read and leave a reply, I'd be grateful.

As a side note question as well, is the lower volume on BitShares the reason for the lower trade prices? I've found it curious how ETH/USD and BTC/USD prices on the market are a noticeable amount lower than other markets.