I like your way of thinking @taskmaster4450 and appreciate that you raise awareness for this topic.
I personally feel that we're still far a way from such a scenario where we can clearly seperate centralized vs. decentralized structures, and according to the already submitted comments it looks as if I wasn't the only one.
Just consider that most of the developers who're in charge of updating this blockchain are part of the Steemit, Inc team for a start. Even though they mostly work behind the scenes while we are the face of Steem as you perfectly pointed out, they are the ones who have a primary influence on how this place is gonna look like in the future.
A couple of outstanding influencers whose visibility even trascends the chain's borders, won't change that. It'd require a close collaboration between both sides in order to really create an impact, e.g. using creators as multipliers in Marketing and PR, establishing a real network between community builders and the HQ in order to create synergy effects, presenting the community and the makers as one. Maybe that is even taking place, but so far it hasn't been appreciable.
Again, thanks for this piece of content and for initiating such an interesting discussion!