I guess even the presence of steemit inc. not being large as the previous years is a indicator of all the development that is taking place here and thus the lack of time. Good things are coming to the Steem blockchain and there is no doubt that they are going to require a lot of work by those involved.
Although I am pretty sure that the crowd this year is going to be a phenomenal one. I have been kind of making a mental list of all the people who are coming and it looks like that we are going to have a blast!