Great article, and suggestions! Fully agree about the 10% fee being way too high/greedy, and can kill the project outright, if it stays that way. When it comes to comes to swaping between hive and swap.hive, it's worth checking out beeswap (leofinance, as you say), which takes 0.25%. The markedplace UI I think will be improved pretty fast, so not too worried about that. Hive also allows for a lot of 3rd party solutions to be built – can for instance see all the stuff like peakmonster, monstermarket etc. that has popped up around Splinterlands, so hope that will be the case for the punks as well.
Yes I think there will be third party solutions unless it changes. In the mean time most large sales will go private to avoid the fee I imagine.