I do believe the reward pool would be depleted by hundreds of thousands of micro accounts and individuals if there was no police.

But wouldn't that create a fairer distribution of steem for all the plankton? And wouldn't that spur adoption?

When I first started, I thought, oh, I can just get a free account and start posting interesting stuff and I'll accumulate a little steem. It took me about 30 days to figure out that my vote was basically worthless (below minimum) and only the most charitable of steemians (@futuremind) would take pitty on me (a lowly newb).