A good thing is that the rewards for posts on the landing/trending page of steemit.com are starting to look realistic, i.e. newcomers will not think it's fantasy or a scam.

About inflation/dilution of shares, Steem/Steemit has to grow by maybe 15% a year (given that most of the Steem is being kept/recycled in the ecosystem), which is realistic in the long-term. There is potential for a lot for a lot of synergy with added functionality.

Personally I don't like the witnesses model of a blockchain very much, but from an investment perspective, it probably won't count very much, as potential big investors of the future first and foremost would see the social media aspect.