Thanks for your comment, @cobmaximus, and apologies for the late reply.

I have heard that suggestion before and I think I like it. As long as it can be done in a clutter-free way tho. I'm not sure I've ever seen it anywhere and I'm wondering if there's a reason for that. I actually do believe in manual curation, as I've started regularly in my comments on this post.

It is also important to keep in mind that the Steem Inc team has extensively studied most social networks and does try to bring us the best combined practices to Steemit. In some weeks Communities should also launch, thy shall give content creators new ways to be highlighted. Hopefully.

One conundrum your suggestion solves is the oh so tempting focus on rep. Which like any other metric can become a vanity statistic and thus irrelevant. I'm actually wondering whether rep should be done away with, as in not shown unless negative. I once had an operator of a rather large scale classified site tell me they did away with the rating system because it created an artificial entry barreer to new users. Generally, any form of classifying can be seen as a negative. I would prefer to level the field and highlight only the negative in that aspect. Again, as a form of protection to those less critically inclined.