I did see some promising news that the steem.dao might be used to convert SBD to STEEM which will subsequently get burned in order to stabilise SBD to nearer the dollar mark and reduce the circulating STEEM.

I saw that too, and I think it's better than the status quo, but I'd really rather see the DAO used to fund development. That would also create selling pressure to drive down the price of SBDs, but it would have a growth focus instead of cannibalizing the ecosystem.

Between the DAO and the "undisputed STEEM", someone really ought to be able to fund a great deal of high quality development for the ecosystem. If they're going to uncork the SPS, I'd love to see Steemit and/or the witnesses put out an "RFP" to real software houses and see what comes in.