Well said ackza! When I was explaining steemit to my father recently I sort of used the steem engine metaphor which is similar to yours, but you went into a lot more detail than I'm capable of cause I just don't understand it as much as you appear to.

But.. A couple months back, there was a point when Dan basically resigned cause the others didn't want to make steemit open source, and this was something that bothered me as well cause I'm all for more openness and freedom, and Dan came on steemit and made a post about the history of steam engines, and how if the government didn't scare off and intimidate the competition, we would have advanced much quicker as a species.. And that copyright laws actually sort of HOLD US back when it comes to new technologies an such especially.

And this made me realize there are a lot of similarities between steemit and the old steam engine.. I have a feeling that is why steemit was named what it was named.. That it had something to do with the history of "steam".. So.. Yeah.. I can't prove it, but I think you're really onto something there.
I think steemit might literally be named that cause the people who created it thought it resembled "steam".