Have you given Medium specific feedback on what is "a mess"? If enough people give them specific examples of "a mess" it will make a difference.

I think that their not showing topics may be another attempt to keep some users from gaming the system (this is something that benefits a few in the short term, but destroys a site like Medium - many have tried this micropayments based on reading time in the past - most or all of them didn't last as long as Medium has, and it's no trivial matter to figure out a solution that can't be abused).