I think your asking the wrong question. SteemIt is just a blogging platform that we are using right now. Steem is the platform itself that developers could build other social media platform on, something similar to facebook, youtueb, twitter, and others. Not everybody loves the blogging style nitch here.
UI on SteemIT has been basically the same since launch, i feel it to be stale for this day in age.

Steem and SteemIT have much potential. But everything needs to come together to create higher value in this ecosystem.