We also believe in manual curation but it has proven impossible to scale manual curation models without falling into patterns that make it hard for new creators to emerge.
Actual vote distribution is much more widely dispersed through SBI's crowd-sourced account level curation model than by any manual curation program of similar size.
There's no perfect system, but things seem generally better now that paid votes have less traction. In general I think people should not be buying votes for themselves or self-voting, especially if they get good rewards anyway. I think a large proportion of voting is automated and so there is less scope to pick up on new users doing good stuff. Most of my voting is manual.