Oh boi you hit the nail on it head
"And I should note that prices for STEEM are still pretty much completely dependent on price moves in the general crypto environment (namely, Bitcoin sentiment). Or when Koreans feel like pumping. The prices don’t appear to be affected much by what happens on this platform. Maybe we ought to consider that reality as well...and try to figure out why nobody seems to care."

Lots of folks are still under the illusion that content creator give this token value without realizing how important it is to engage the traders/ speculators and investors... We have successfully kill off the Koreans traders buying killing off their favorite asset, I assume you probably come across their discord or telegram channel...
Steem would be at 10 dollars, the traders are committed, but some stakeholders have been relentless dumping on them, these folks don't realize they kill off enthusiasm....
If you want a higher price, we have to kill off the supply, and there is the unlikely way of doing it but most people are not open to the idea...