I completely see your point. I think we face a lot of challenges when it comes to steemit and communities. While cycling4steemit and others is a great start, it's still so far away from what I wish it to be. I will soon start to have a bit more time on my hands to brainstorm some ideas to what can help us. But it's not ideas we need, it's people(including myself) to take action.

Right now it's about uniting the community and sadly steemit don't have the tools for that just yet, although they are working on it. But do we wish to wait around for so long? Of course we can look outside of steemit and begin to use other means of uniting us abit more such as discord.

In the end its about creating a place that is attractive to go. Both as you suggests through challenges etc. :) I love to see you have stated to take some action yourself!

Cheers man!