This reputation system you propose is very interesting.

In regards to trending among those you "trust", I and others have suggested similar going back over a year ago. The basic idea would be things trending among your friends. Basically a simpler idea along the same lines of what you said.

I think if Steemit had actually implemented some of the ideas like this and others quite a while ago, we'd be in a very different situation now, because you could see what was trending among your friends, rather than just what some random whale or bot upvoted.

I'd also like to see more curation tools built into the interfaces. Curation should mean more than just upvoting, but actually finding awesome posts that other people will love.