Loving the enthusiasm, upvoted and followed! I've made some business cards to put on counters, hand out to people, put under wipers, put on the grocery store billboards, etc: https://steemit.com/steemit/@libertyteeth/business-cards-for-steemit-to-increase-participation
I agree with you -- marketing is the way! (And my history is as a developer, who'd a thunk. :) )
The devs are trying to solve a problem while not taking into consideration the difficulty new users will face during account creation. Its already a difficult annoying process for the new users . Now they are introducing mining. While I appreciate their effort; they seem to think everyone is as tech savy as they are. No!