A 255-comment nesting limit, no 4-post/day penalty, independent comment payouts

These are backward steps in the right direction. So not pointless, but not the same as progress.

I understand the resistance to limitations for external applications. But Steem will not be applicable to everything. By trying to make it so we limit progress as we stand at crossroads never taking any direction. It was intended to be a social media platform. We can either accept that or come to a consensus on an alternative. Do you think we would ever reach that consensus so far into the game?

Claiming that separating the reward pool limits applications is also no more true than posts being inherently different from comments on the blockchain already does. There is already limitations that any app developer would have to work around, perhaps by disabling comments and using posts only. The reward pool makes absolutely no difference to their ability to build.

To make that claim please provide an example of what you imagine and then let us determine if the separated reward pools would really hinder it.

I also remember you at the forefront against removing that portion of curation rewards, which made the implementation easily gamed.

Once again steem can't be everything, if we try to make it everything it won't ever be anything.

Experience has proven

Experience suggests, it alone rarely proves anything.