225 isn't bad, especially since it's been a bear market. Glad it's worked out for you

Steem in general is a slow economy. I think it is expensive to run, or at least witnesses get paid a LOT. It's code heavy, so things break and don't work, so a lot of resources go to keeping it working. I don't think Golos will be any different in the long run. Maybe it will really take off, but it's got an extra level of exit schemes for people who are just gaming the system. That combined with developers not able to keep wallet's stable (wallets are offline regularly across exchanges).
I still hope steem (and golos) prove themselves, if not it will probably happen on EOS. I really hope that steem can port itself to EOS when it comes out. Being connected to a broader ecosystem will be so important to it.