Currently there isn't a good way to easily find out all the relevant details how Steem works. Everything is scattered around Steem and forums, and whitepaper hasn't been updated for a long time.
So if somebody really wants to learn everything, he needs to check the source code. For a coder that is time consuming and for a non-coder that's not helpful at all.
IMHO this is a quite big problem at the moment.
I agree. If someone compiled it all into a single, easy-to-browse location, it would probably garner many upvotes, especially from whales (who are heavily invested in the system being transparent and trusted).
Hopefully we could finally get a wiki for Steem, that would help a lot: https://steemit.com/steemit-ideas/@samupaha/steem-really-needs-a-wiki