I raised a similar question in my intro post yesterday, but then, a few seconds later, the #hack happened and steemit went into maintenance mode.

p. 20 of the whitepaper does seem to confirm your suspicion; it is expected to have a Zipfian wealth distribution, with a powerless majority and an untouchable elite minority. With all talk of "powering up" (accompanied by Goku screenshots from Dragon Ball), it would be interesting to see whether a "Spirit Bomb" is possible also: a move where all (lots of) Steemians lend their power to one single user to allow him to wrestle down whatever menacing force threatens to destroy the "world" (community).

As you, I am looking forward to more informed views on the matter. Some of the "whales" announced they would be powering down to level the field, so it seems there is some awareness of the problem.