By "still fresh" I meant still within the upvote curation window. It doesn't do any good if the post is excellent but doesn't get noticed until after the 7d window has passed.
If the auto-votes are incentivized to occur at 1.5d after the original post, that will boost the 'good posts' (i.e. those that got the most manually-curated votes) while there is still plenty of time for additional manual curation.
I'm willing to try it.
My main gripe is the exponential penalty on small votes.
That thing chaps my hide.
Personally, I don't fully understand the rationale behind a 7d window on curation rewards. I guess some window needed to be chosen.