Oh gosh, thanks so much for this beautiful comment! It's comments like this that make steem amazing - connections with thoughtful, lovely human beings! I am so glad to inspire you - and humbled!!! Appreciation is a fine thing - it's such a nice gift to give people and I appreciate YOU for taking the time to do it. Much love! 

Front-ends are simply like Steemit - a different way to see the same stuff really. Are you using Steempeak? That's a front end too. 

For the tribe front ends, what they generally do is take the code and change it a bit so it operates the same, but with a few small differences, such as www.naturalmedicine.io, weedcash.network and many others. Instead of steem, you'll see the token for that community or tribe. The great thing about this is that people outside Steem might see their niche celebrated and find their way to this blockchain via their particular interests. All a tribe is really is a community, and a community is a tribe. Tribe was adopted because of Steem-engine, who were making the various versions of the Steem front end adaptable for the particular niches that wanted them, like us at Natural Medicine. Tribes made sense. Now of course we have the 'communities' feature that is coming soon (it's in beta mode being tested at the moment) which is another way to organise folk. 

Ha, have I exhausted you yet? I love the ins and outs of this crazy place!