I'm starting to feel like there are too many cooks in the kitchen. @jesta's idea is interesting, but it would create a psychological effect of "paying" (in tokens) to promote content. That goes against the genius that is Steemit in that people get paid without any form of microtipping involved. The white paper explains this well.

If any estimates like this were shown it would (IMO) only further increase the (sometimes out of whack) expectations already created here. I can see it now. There would be so many posts by people complaining about suggested payouts being wildly inaccurate because future votes (or lack of them). Isn't the curation reward completely dependent on the total payout which is completely unknown until the final payout amount? The site already has plenty of gamification and monetization techniques built in. Do we really need to increase them? The interface simplicity is one of the things I love the most about this site. It would be sad to see it get overly confused for new users.

To be clear, I'm not against sharing of new ideas and exploring new concepts. I think it's wonderful. I just hope the ideas are measured and thought through with the same level of psychological and game theory understanding as the founders put into what we enjoy now.