the network problems on july 13- 15 were nothing to do with steem, was a wallet upgrade feature that was released at the same time as the Steem release. the network has been stress tested to handle far more than steem give it. did you see this post explaining? https://medium.com/byteball/network-issues-over-the-weekend-and-questions-about-steem-attestations-99935d9a3efd