Upvoted, followed and re-steemed.
Good points. I think the problem with all the complexity is partly just an impression created by the fact that many of the most active and popular people are trying to game the system to earn rewards rather than just posting what interests them. Maybe this is just a phase the platform has to go through - I'm not sure what you can do about it apart from wait for more ordinary users to come on board. The bots are particularly annoying, some comments that seem to be from users who say they followed you and when you check they didn't - it's just a ploy to gain more followers. It's almost as if the financial incentives are just causing everyone to turn into crazy gold diggers.
On the flagging point I asked the Steemit content director about it:
... and he replied:
RE: How to Improve Steemit Member Retention - Suggestions from a Newbie