Having been here a long time I can agree with most of that. I do think that Hive is something special in a world of corporate social media. There are people here I have been talking to for years and I keep meeting more, sometimes in the real world!
The whale infighting is a problem. They tend to have strong views on how things should be, but we really are a small pond and most of the world does not care about us. We ought to be building up the community even if it goes off in different directions. So what if someone makes a few bucks doing something you do not like!
We do have a messaging system that you can access in peakd and some other dapps. It uses our standard keys and so is secure. It is just not used much.
We definitely need more cats here. They are what makes the internet better.
Lots of !LUV