I was opposed to the Economic Improvement Proposal, but I have to admit it's working incredibly well. Always remember: it's a miracle that the system is functioning at all, with so much freedom and quite a bit of money on the table.
@apofis is right that the EIP was about the actual distribution of rewards, not just the front page. You're right that front-ends should fix whatever's wrong with the Trending page. I'd propose showing posts upvoted by curation projects to people who are not logged in. Today, it's just a matter of aesthetics indeed. I don't care that high rewards go to meta posts about Hive and right-wing rants. It's not the first thing I'd want to show newbies, but it's not spam either.
Selling downvotes won't happen because it's easier to lease delegated Hive Power. And then the owner's name isn't on it. Leased HP is already being used for downvotes by a certain Chinese news account, and technically by me too, following @steevc's spamfighting.
I'll admit I don't understand all the ins and outs of the algorithm, but I work with what we have. If smarter people can find ways to avoid the bad guys abusing things then that's great. I am not finding so much to downvote on Hive, but that could easily change and we have to be ready.
Yeah, it is working quite well for now I agree.
Also, there are so many more important things to be doing rather than bicker about what we are doing with 8% inflation a year. 8% is nothing when we consider a killer dapp would send us flying higher than 10x