Steemit Inc's burning 50% of their Steem Power would really be the solution. Or at least they could place that amount in the "Project fund" .
The problem is not genuine investors who bought Steem getting 1% interest, but Steemit Inc getting the lion share of that 1% as they own most of the Steem Power.
To be fair genuine Steem Power investors/holders should be getting an even higher % than just 1%. Total inflation is 10% (with 7% going to Authors) that means that Holding Investors are actually losing 9% in stake currently (unless curating,blogging etc)....and by removing that 1% they 'd be losing -10%.
Infact the idea of Bonds by @stephenkendal for rewarding long term holders with even higher interest rates would be fantastic to attract investment. but it will always be frowned upon till the vast majority of the Steem Power is in the hands of the few people who ninjamined Steem (so again burning half of that would be important).

Bottomline: real big investors are not interested nor have time to buy Steem to become curators (and curation rewards are crap anyway), but would invest if holding was profitable.
And for holding to be profitable I think they need to be offered a rate that somehow mitigates the 10% inflation.
Btw I also got the impression from your other thread about SBD that you are "anti-investor"...as you oppose a stable peg for the SBD which would actually bring a lot of value to Steem. Also in this thread you go straight for the 1% interest of Steem Holders....without even considering lowering that 69% for authors...which then goes straight to exchanges putting selling pressure on Steem.
Provocation: maybe we should take 10% from all the top trending post to fund those Projects. or do you think this post is really worth 500+$? ;P
We really need to be mindful that without investors this place won't last long, so just an author centric approach won't work.
So far investors have only been wasting their bitcoins for some mild entertainment.
Maybe there needs to be a Steem roundtable to focus on the economic model, I don't think it was well thought through and it doesn't seem to be working. Steem is an experiment....so the community and investors may accept yet another change...but after 2 years it is really time to have formalized and finalized an economic model that works for everyone : investors (aka holders), authors, curators and developers. The balance between all 4 is vital.