You have to search through huge amounts of crap and spam to find the odd gem.

Just this weekend I was asked if I wanted to curate for Curie. I've spend many hours wading through the crap and I still didn't find any post that fit all the requirements. Granted, Curie has many requirements (some I don't agree with, others I do), but it is an example of how right you are by pointing this out. It takes so much time to find good content when there is so much crap being posted.

I'm not sure how exactly we can rectify that situation. One thing that comes to mind is an option to sort by reputation. That, however, makes it very hard for newbies to get a foothold. Especially since everyone is so afraid to flag bad posts, so they'll be on the same rep level as cat picture spammers.

Look at extra rewards for top curators.

What is a 'top curator' in this scenario? Is it the person who uses most of their voting power/percentage (excluding on themselves)? Is it the person who upvotes posts with a combined highest rewards payout? I hope neither by the way. I'm not sure how to define a top curator. Someone who's serious about curation and actually upvotes good content, no matter what the potential payout/reward for themselves is, but how do you measure that?

I love your post and agree with it. Like you though, I have no clue how to make curation a more thankful job whilst remaining 'fair', or as fair as things can be.