I'll try to answer some of your questions the way I understand it. Bitshares DEX (bitshares.org) is the core wallet and exchange of all assets native to bitshares (meaning the assets made within bitshares).
Openledger is one of the few businesses built on top of Bitshares' core software. It's like a white label or private label in a way. Anybody can do their own exchange using Bitshares, actually there's quite a few right now like Rudex, Cryptobridge, etc.
They all differ from the core in that they can act as an escrow or broker for us to deposit and withdraw assets not native to bitshares. Assets like bitcoin, ether, steem, etc.
Thus you might see a prefix on these assets like OPEN.BTC, OPEN. ETH, etc for all assets guaranteed by Openledger. The same goes with other exchanges built on top of Bitshares (RUDEX. BTC, BRIDGE. BTC, etc)
It might seem quite complex to people upon seeing something like this, but improvements are on the way to make it look less confusing and easy to use.
With regards to the 'extraction fee', I'm not so keen on how big it is compared to other exchanges but I've been trading on other exchanges and I think it's not that high. You can also get as much as 80% back on the fees once you become a lifetime member which costs approximately less than $160 right now.
Hope I answered some of your questions.
ok, this is the best explanation yet, of the gateway thing, but why would BitShares allow it? Wouldn't it just be MUCH easier to simply open up BitShares to other cryptos like Steem?
Also, bitcoin and ether aren't native to BitShares? What IS native if not those two?
We almost fear the solution more, bc will it just obfuscate some legal complications? There's a lot of counter-party risk in the world, and just making something simpler-looking doesn't remove the problem, it's just clouds it's visibility. If a product is good, can't it stand on its own for the most part without having clones like OpenLedger?
Again, on the withdrawal fee, it's not making it any more attractive to say "others are the same".
This is an inherent crypto-currency problem, which defies the very reasons people were first attracted to crypto-currencies. If this is becoming "standard", then crypto deserves the drubbing it's been getting. Everything that was promised, is not happening so far. Sure, Lightning Network and Segwit MIGHT solve some of the problems, but the MAIN problem to all of this, is that there's too many grubby fingers trying to make money and charging the maximum possible to exploit the trend.
We think this all ends badly, frankly.
But yes, we appreciate your candor and attempt at addressing these questions/problems.
But realistically, wake us up when the fees are per-transaction and thus withdrawal fees are zero, or when the withdrawal fee is reasonable. Even an annual fee would make more sense, upto say 2.5%. Altho we think that'd be highway robbery, given the 10 year T-bond pays only about 3% give or take 50 basis points.