I'm sure that there are many more improvements that can be done along the way. Af far as I'm concerned, user activity has something to do with the distribution of Steem. Though I'd agree that it takes a lot of hard work and awfully long time to accumulate a lot of Steem through blogging, many Steem owners accumulated Steem by cashing in. I haven't seen the data but I believe that rising from 'the ranks' is still possible.