Interestingly enough, I could have written the exact same post... I totally share your thoughts here.
Curation groups that can really make a difference are barely supported (this can be easily checked by verifying where the big delegations go), the work behind these curation groups (that ranges up to several hundreds of hours a week!) is barely noticed and even less recognized, and so on.
I personally still want to work to make a difference, like all my steemstem colleagues by the way. There is a huge potential on the STEEM platform through the social network facet. I however cannot tell what the future will be. I hope things will change in the right direction.