I like steem. I think its a good concept. And i m pretty confident in the currency (im one of the top 30 steem holders on bittrex).

That said, steem is centralized. In fact, one of the very things that you praise about steem, the way the leadership handled the recent hacks, would be impossible for a decentralized platform (like ETH or BTC)
Ultimately, TPTB will determine the level of centralization. Too much, and there will be no real difference between steemit and reddit. And no real difference between steem and paypal (or a similar centralized currency).