I am still new to hive, but i have noticed some of the problems you are talking about. To me biggest flaw is that there is not a lot of articles. Yes people are writing all the time. But do you really want to read 25 articles about someone's breakfast or strange mark on their skin?

I think that there would be a lot more people if you would reward fun and informative articles. But in most cases they get lost in sea of generic and money seeking posts.