Automatic curation is not right, nor is front running manual curators. Some of the best Steem Curators consider it rewards abuse to only upvote the same 10/20 people. When there are only 10-20 posts per day, it's not apparent but it will be if/when hundreds start posting. It's best to reward anyone producing quality content, not just friends, whales and whitelist members.

I also feel that quality has plateaued here and am on a mission to improve it the way Steem intended to operate, through Proof of Brain.