it still takes an entire week to replay a bare minimum Steem blockchain node

Not when configured as recommended for a minimum (witness/consensus) node. It takes about 5-8 hours on a low end system except with 64 GB of RAM (a memory requirement that is designed to increase relatively slowly even under heavier use).

MIRA allows running in less RAM but with much worse replay time, an optional tradeoff.

Full nodes are slower but still only a day or so with good hardware. Again, tradeoffs between cost and time exist but are optional.

So far it is still workable, and could still scale somewhat while remaining workable, while the developers still plod along at making improvements. How their pace of progress will go from here on out I don't know.