I agree with most of your post. One thing I'd like to expand on is original content. I just want to be clear that I don't oppose original content, I just don't think it is a necessity to promote discussion. I think any content that gets users to engage in discussion is good content, whether it's original or sharing a link. Obviously stealing content is NOT good, and I'm not a fan of copying and pasting an entire article, but I don't see anything wrong with sharing a link to something that helps users engage in a discussion. I suppose I'm thinking of it more like a message board, I use to run my own and plenty of topics were links to another source, with a small amount of commentary by the author of the thread, and those were sometimes the best discussions.

My overall point is, I think something that is engaging and promoting discussion is better to me than a long winded original content essay. However, I suppose that depends on the community, if Steemit is going to embrace smaller communities as cogs in the bigger wheel, then those communities will end up deciding on their own what is worthy of upvoting and what is not. We are a long way from there, but I can see that as the future of Steemit.

If Steemit wants to embrace the original content aspect of it fully, perhaps its better off being a direct competitor to Disqus rather than social media such as Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter. Have sites embed Steemit as their comment sections, and submit their content directly to Steemit.