This went into a topic I consider very serious and I would like to share another perspective. (Yup, I'm all about perspectives it looks like, I even run a project with that same word in the title and it has so much in common, but only in my mind I guess, with what you and others talk about...)

So this other perspective is about positive change in my perspective although it is about a problem. That is not to be neglected if we care about the future here. Anyway, I post a large wall of text I found as the best summary of the problem. If anybody continues to read or another discourse starts after that, I consider myself very lucky.

That belongs to @quillfire and the whole post is here. But let me bring that wall up at last:

I am HUGELY supportive of any and all curation projects ... especially those that involve manual curation (or direct support of manual curation). Indeed, I have argued on countless occasions that High Quality Curators are EVERY BIT AS IMPORTANT to the future of Steemit as are High Quality Content Creators.
But this brings up a HUGE problem. Curation is supposed to be a process of re-enforcing feedback loops ... all of which are crippled on Steemit.
I have won numerous Curies. What happens is that Curie upvotes a post, which triggers an auto-upvote by @hendrickdegrote (a Whale ... and God Bless his soul) which then triggers a couple of Orca auto-upvotes and a couple of hundred Minnow auto-upvotes (most of which are worth less than a penny). At present, you're lucky if this adds up to USD $20. And then ... the process STOPS dead in its tracks. The entire "curation process" is over in a matter of minutes.
Theoretically, Curie's initial manual upvote is supposed to trigger a cascade. Curie and hedrickdegrote bump the post into HOT where many other users see and upvote it. This bumps it into TRENDING where the dynamic repeats itself. The net result is that really high quality content races to the top and gets wide exposure and generous compensation.
And then ... such TRENDING posts (the Best of Steemit) are supposed to start getting shared on other social media platforms and across the Internet more broadly. And this would be MASSIVE free advertising for Steemit which would become known for being a hotbed of GREAT CONTENT.
This would attract new users, especially those capable of creating high quality content and desirous of being compensated for it. These new users would more than offset the price-deflationary effects of an inflationary currency (payouts from the Reward Pool increase the Monetary Supply). And hence, the price of STEEM would increase as demand for the currency rises.
Increasing price of any financial asset draws the attention of investors and financial actors. A higher priced STEEM, driven by the SuperStars, augments the payouts for everyone lower down in the hierarchy. The merit-based higher payouts to SuperStars also provides motivation, and a template, to those desirous of climbing the ladder.
A virtuous cycle.
As discussed earlier, however, the theory is not the reality ... the entire system short-circuits after the first stage of curation. Either a Curie upvote doesn't result in a post's getting into HOT (there isn't enough SP in Curie's Curation trail) or, if it does, nothing then happens because almost no one with substantial upvoting power is interested in curating. (Whales and Orcas control 85% of SP).
Why not?
Because they're instead seeking to generate Passive Income (interest) by delegating to bidbots and other game-rigging mechanisms.
85% of the limited upvoting capital, that is supposed to be used for quality content curation, is instead used for upvote manipulation of one kind or another. Of course, the problem is further magnified by the fact that everyone now knows that there's no correlation between quality and the HOT and TRENDING pages. Personally, I haven't looked at either in at least 9 months. And so, even Minnow and Dolphin SP is not being used to re-enforce Curie's initial curation.
Worst of all, when a prospective user or investor shows up on Steemit to investigate the blockchain, they inevitably click on HOT and TRENDING, expecting to see extraordinary content. Instead, they see utter garbage.
I run an advertising agency ... you only get One Chance to make a FIRST IMPRESSION. Given that their First Impression will be negative, it will be all-but-impossible to get them to return at a later date for a second look. How many people's opinions have already been so poisoned?

Now, I have yet to reach the bottom of his article and my five cents (Alright, literally speaking, I weigh half as much on both accounts combined as of yet) will probably appear there.