I wasn't too happy when Bittrex disabled withdrawals and deposits a couple of days ago.
It left Blocktrades as the only viable exchange partner for me.
For me, Steem only has (monetary) value at the moment if it can be traded for other crypto or fiat (euro/dollars).
The user base is not big enough to use it as an actual currency as of yet. I can see this change in the future.
I am paying designer 
The guy is doing an incredible job and recently send me new drafts a couple of days ago. The guy is a pro and doing way more than I thought possible for the 250SBD I offered.
Enjoying my morning coffee
The fact that you could not deposit or withdrawal Steem on Poloniex for such a long time should be considered as a warning really.
I would recommend taking your Steem out if it's not there to be traded. You never know when they decided to start this again.
Remember any crypto you have on an exchange is just a ledger entry on the exchange. You don't own any of your cryptos while it's on an exchange.
I did a test withdrawing 4 STEEM form Poloniex and it worked fine. It once again reminded me how awesome the STEEM blockchain is.
After starting the withdrawal procedure I had the STEEM in my own wallet within a minute.
Succesful withdrawal
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