I don't know, there is too much attention to Steem price and not enough to applications.
Applications that are of real value to users should be backed by the top whales. Contributors to those apps should be rewarded with significant Steem.

Utopian springs to mind of course, but what about other undervalued specialized apps such as knacksteem?

It's all about the apps.
And I don't think general blogging will cut it.

Steem apps should work hand in hand with mainstream apps like Facebook, rather than being snob about those.
Steempeak, Steemit and the likes should be full of FB like and Google +1 buttons.
Just my two cents.