Anything that needs a continuous flow of investors is pretty much a ponzi scheme. And you're right, market conditions unrelated to how things are going here are pushing the prices up on the open markets. I cannot fault anyone who tries to profit off of this scheme under current market conditions. It's not a guarantee that STEEM and SBD will remain this high, and if the prices are high through no one on this website's actions then it only makes sense to exploit the limited time window that is presumably available to them.
I understand what you're saying in that big changes to how things operate around here are needed for steemit to remain relevant when prices crater. Sadly I don't think anyone who is profiting massively from this all right now is, even if they are aware of better ways to go about things in the future, going to cut their own legs from under them in the present, because it may well be the better option to shore up capital while you can and worry about how you can revive genuine interest in the platform later, especially if there aren't many real repercussions to doing so.
The main damage was done in creating a blockchain where stake determines everything, and then doling that stake out to a handful of people you know will back the same opinions. Everything else is just fallout from that initial shockwave of bad decision-making.