So I wrote a post a little while back talking about these very problems and here are some of the ideas I have to address them.

1. A Frontend "hack" to extend the 7 day pay period

The way this would work is that if someone voted on a post after the seven day payout a comment would be automatically created on that post, auto hidden and the upvote would be applied to that comment. Visually, the end user would simply see the post reward go up in line with their upvote and this would all happen behind the scenes effectively removing the 7 day limit.

2. Allow for an easy UX to donate Steem as well as other cryptocurrencies as well as fiat on frontends.

This is also a mod for frontends not Steem itself. Initially we could also just visually show donation per post and comment etc. with Steem, but eventually the real power and increase in all Steem dapps utility would be integrating donations of a multitude of cryptos on all Steem posts.
The way this would work is via an internal exchange where all those other currencies would be converted to Steem and the converted Steem is what would be sent to the creators wallet.

This would not only extend the utility of all Steem dapps, but it would give people who are not necessarily super into Steem a reason to buy Steem, even if they're doing it indirectly. Ultimately this would increase the value that all content creators add to Steem instead of creators ultimately just extracting value. Of course I'm referring to tangible monetary value, not in the inherent value that good content offers.

An extension of this idea that could be done with an SMT or even a Steem Engine token(I think?) would be to reward people who donate with a token that effectively acts as a curation reward token for donations. This could then be traded for Steem, or exchanged for upvotes(similar to Partiko points). This way people that come here and like to reward people via donations instead of via a stake could still be rewarded and build a stake that way as well.

One more benefit of this is that everyone's posts could potentially earn more overall because you wouldn't need thousands invested just to give someone a little tip. The current system will make most users feel like they don't have much influence, but when you can just donate one dollar and have that be visible, and be rewarded for it, everyone will be able to participate at a higher level.

Rant over.