I'm glad you got me back to Steem. The 50/50 is a great incentive to reward more content creators. The challenge within that change is perhaps adapting to it, but that's all about mindset. Shouldn't be a problem to most, it takes time.
I haven't checked Trending out that much (or at all), but @celestal pointed out it was going in the right direction. I take his words on that.
The changes are a great way to empower the solid initiatives as things should be going less about 100% focussed ROI. It might be that people are still in that mindset, but I give it a few months until that changes. On the other hand, while there is a lot of great content out there, it will be harder for the content creators to get a steady flow of rewards for their work. Which should mean they need to create original and high-quality content. I hope curators will take that into account as well.