@whatsup , @donkeypong , @gtg, true true and true , : too early to really have a conclusive opinion , too much at once and indeed, a picture of a steak gets about the same as a metafysical treaty on time or how to see anarchy lol ... in the end however, as systems and humans go, it does stand to reason that those in power will not vote for anything that damages themselves . . . bidbots and profit ? heh ... if you did that math, i did that for a while, its very dependen on the price over seven days, you get curation which isnt a set percentage, if you get 1% on top you're probably voting with small bots, who don't really make a dent in the pool with their value, if you go to the higher up actual profit from the vote itself becomes unlikely as their margins are lower.
I don't consider them evil things, they're just part of the system because the system has it in it. If any of the new rules are prone to anything that can be used, it will be done, thats just how it goes. If you make a bet on tipu or the bigger one for 50 dollar or more you're unlikely to get your 50 dollar back unless , as done with hitsingles since the beatles your position in the top ten shouts * -> popular <-* , musthave :p

If you look at steemit as a social media platform then the importance of bulk here seems to be highly underrated due to some elder rules instated at the start when it all came for free and the top witness could basically rake it in by sleeping. You can not expect 99% of posts to be world-changing, thats not how things are, but you need the bulk or you're left with a platform with a few 1000 posts a day because no one bothers and you get better money from youtube or something. it IS about the money after all, right thats what it says on the frontpage ... i doubt you reach much of the 'general populace' if i may be so bold as to call it that, considering the number of reactions you get here i'd say it's safe to say most do indeed not care to be engaged.

Halving author rewards in order to promote bigger entities ... that does sound indeed close to sponsoring the big five with money from the little billion (million in this case)
but until it's implemented and tested it's gonna be really hard to say. Any externsice plan, the more its planned ahead and the more complicated it gets gains also by that more chance at flaws and failures, purely statistical, so ...
here's hoping it goes gradually, not over one single fork and seriously considered with an option to rollback in a very short time the moment ugly beetles and backdoors no one thought of (which is normal) start popping up. It's better to go steady than to go fast, if steem stays around a dollar than so be it, it's not limited amount anyway
AND (lol)
It's not the smallfry who will bottom out the price, if all the plankton with steem accounts would sell of everything by tomorrow i doubt it would make much of a dent.

It needs to stay attractive for the general user, that's a fact but as for the rest i havent read nearly enough of the included links and im probably five posts behind on steemitblog itself, so im not gonna start making suggestions or anything, and beside i'm nobody anyway but thanks @timcliff , i think you're one of the first witnesses i voted on here, you're pretty level, i can appreciate that :D

the thing where it says separated downvote pool sounds scary but i havent read up on it, i personally have been a hudge fan of removing negative voteweight but havent studied the whitepaper either so i dont even know if that's possible : my point being if you succeed in onboarding huge brandnames that compete ... coca/pepsi, to name two, you can't have that ...
gud, and here i was not going to talk ... im gonna continue a bit on my brand lol, eta due 2050 i think, if by then it's still worth the time hahah

(sick sense of humour, j/k, we'll see, i just seriously hope they take it easy and one step at a time and don't get caught up in some dopamine-rush, that could end with a serious hangover)

el Gato out :p