Great points, @lukestokes and thanks for sharing the Github screenshots and links. As someone who both regularly asks my followers for improvement ideas, and calls out the currently inconveniences, I really appreciate what you are trying to do here.
Sure, I can complain at times about the seemingly lack of enhancements and upgrades to the Steemit.com website, I realize that anyone can build a front-end for the Steem blockchain and I've been evaluating such an opportunity. I do realize that Steem >> Steemit.
I should mention that I've been giving quite a few presentations on Steem(it) recently and the most common pieces of feedback I get is how the user interface lacks in so many areas. Look, I know the dev team is working hard, it can be seen in Github, but it doesn't matter if ppl constantly say that the UI is one reason that they leave the platform.
As much as we want to brush over it, taking care of the user experience is the "last mile" of any app and helping users feel at home is important. I won't link to it, but one of my recent posts lists at least 15 improvements to Steemit that I think would help increase engagement and retention.
Now, if we could think of a solid revenue model that would incentivize us to build a better front-end...we could give Steemit a bit more competition and improve the community as a whole.
For now, I find myself using Steemit more than Busy because i've grown accustom to how to dance around this interface.
Thanks again for your dedication to the platform. You constantly provide value.
-Ashe
PS: Do you know if anyone has re-visited the 2017 Roadmap and compared what was planned vs implemented? Also, 3 months ago @ned asked for feedback on the 2018 Roadmap...has it been released yet? https://steemit.com/roadmap2018/@steemitblog/steemit-roadmap-2018-community-input-requested
The interesting thing for me to think about is the larger goals and how they relate to current motivations and short-term focus. Based on conversations I had with Sneak at Steemfest, people leaving the platform right now were not a huge concern for them. That bothered me a lot, but I really spent some time thinking about it. It doesn't mean they don't care about people right now. They still have their contact info and can still market to them once the many improvements they want are completed.
Steemit appears to me to be building for hundreds of millions of users. Compared to them, if 50k or even 100k join today and leave because it's not ready yet, that's comparatively (statistically) not relevant when compared to 100M+ users. That's an eye-opening way to think about things. If there are things they have to do now to prepare for those future users, then that certainly should be the priority. As you said, other people can fork the front end or make their own. Other people can't (yet) make significant improvements to the blockchain itself which would enable it to support many, many million more users. That's all on Steemit, inc right now.
I don't have any updates regarding the roadmap. I think the approach of making hard goals like they did last year won't be repeated. What they do end up communicating, is yet to be seen.