These are some nice points that you pointed out, I do believe our reward system is actually being abused, "the rich get richer and the poor aren't even noticed." I believe, 10% reward from every post/comment/etc should be collected separately and should be distributed between every user(whale, dolphin, minnow, red fish) equally. So, the money doesn't just stay between the poor, the reason this is needed because of other factors that are being abused(upvote bots), due to upvote bots , people tend to autovote whales who already earn a lot because of which it is only those few authors who keep on getting into trending and other equally deserving authors don't get the attention they deserve and are demotivated.