Curation has been a problem and you're right... without a sizable middle class, it won't happen. I think there have been a couple of delegation initiatives, with some working out better than others. I think the fulltimegeek one was a good one.
Fastest way to build up steem power is to become a developer on the platform. It's quite a good option... worth exploring.
With 5k steemians that have 10k - 50k SP the whole dynamic would change.
Time permitting, I will be explored 😃
Yeah, with your coding skills i think it will go very well.