I think the issue is that ever since the "experiment", curation hasn't been working well at all. It used to be fun going on an upvoting spree to see if you could front-run the curie posts and earn a decent curation award. Now there is no point. Which means that some posts get $$$ and others are languishing on a few cents.
On the other hand, there are lots of curators with good amounts of delegated SP now. So it's worthwhile frontrunning them. Besides, Curie is still going, but yes at a lower pace than before.