If almost no one sees the point, then you'll see precisely what you are describing. Sluggish volume and a relatively gradual downward trend.

The price would not trend lower if the small number of people who do continue to sell are matched by a small number of people who continue to buy. This would be low-volume constant (or nearly-constant) price and exactly what you see for a large number of 'zombie coins".

The point is not that volume would drop to zero, but the little guys or occasional whale towel thrown in, along with the usual trickle (e.g. from rewards) are not enough volume to accomplish distribution on a useful timescale. (And to the extent that it does, as I mentioned earlier, it will likely distribute coins to a small number of buyers, not a large number; in a low-volume, low-price environment, where would a large number of people with an interest in buying come from? Nowhere.)

And to get significant growth there has to be better distribution.

Then IMO it is probably a good idea to just give up and conclude that launching in the manner this was launched was a fatal error, with one caveat. I don't see lower prices, or even reasonably stable prices, as aiding in distribution before this all becomes so old and leapfrogged by newer and better projects as to be irrelevant. The caveat concerns the steemit account, which both contains enough to meaningfully affect distribution and was intended to accomplish distribution regardless of price (mostly by giving away coins). If this is done effectively, and in a reasonably expedient manner, then the distribution can improve before price does.

I don't entirely agree that growth necessarily requires distribution first, but it does require something other than what has been done so far.