Manual curation is GOODNESS on steemit... you're a good "Snekky" and it's a ratty here :). I think "challenges" are a fun idea... also as I commented that the shoutouts are maybe dropped in the radio show and in advance you can leave a message to the selected ones... and well LET US ALL do a bit of shout outs! :)
All my best wishes for this and yes THERE ARE NEVER enough manual curation... I don't have any kind of power and still I was thinking about doing also a selection of my weekly favourites (random).
I'm forwarding this to a couple of friends that I think belong as they truely support underrated content.