The problem is partially though that Steemit is not improving much. They're making very small changes over a longer period of time - like changing "Flag" to "Downvote". They're not tackling most of the issues at hand.

This is why people are using alternatives for browsing Steem blockchain, like Busy.org, Partiko-app or Steempeak. They have some of the features people have been requesting, but not those which you were looking after.

I could imagine a private chat could be handled with memo keys through the blockchain OR by keeping the messages off the blockchain, which would be simpler and wouldn't require sending 0,001 transactions per every message.