I think you are dead-right.
Seems like most social media is trending to the comments section. Users post mostly links or short ideas and the engagement is in long chains of comments on the topic presented. I think there is a lot of value in that, but the STEEM/HIVE community is very much focused on the idea of all the value being in the content of the post and less perceived value in the conversations in the comments.

If you look at reddit, twitter,FB, the engagement and best content is in the comments.

All that said, I have no idea what the solution to the problem is, so I'm just throwing out thoughts/ideas to contribute to the subject... I'm in the comments :-)