The big game here is making curation more profitable than content creation. In the long term, it is expected that curation patterns change in benefit for the authors, but that might not happen.

A vote received before 30/15 mins meant more author reward, and even that is taken out of the equation? what's left for authors if people keep curating the same way they've been doing it so far? How will new users be persuaded to come use Steemit if chances for a reward are being diminished with each hardfork?

I'm not very optimistic about these changes as I see those with the more stake receiving more out of their cryptocurrencies and giving less for this site to function as it was previously designed. I'm afraid curation patterns will stay the same and authors will be less motivated to create content. The long run you hope for might not happen...