I suspect there is more going on 'behind the scenes' within the dev team at Steemit than people think. They have spoken about building an infrastructure that can scale. Scaling will be hugely important, especially when they open the floodgates to new Steemians with automated registration, SMTs etc.

Personally, I am less fussed about the current look / UX of Steemit right now as new Dapps will no doubt be built to deliver a better experience (if Steemit doesn't get there first...).

As for EOS, we'll have to wait and see. They definitely have the cash, but that's not always a good thing as they could end up trying to bite off more than they can chew. Having Dan on board is a huge bonus for them but he has been behind Steem too so it also comes with good pedigree. 

It's going to be an interesting 6-12 months and it might just be that the arrival of EOS is just what Steem needed...