I honestly don't mind giving it a shot, I think the 50/50 split could very well improve curation. The thing I feel like won't work in this whole plan is the "group/community" flagging.
I'd rather we just put it out there, so people will see it doesn't work and we can move on to finding another solution.
I think for us to have trending page that doesn't suck, we'll have to use a more complex algorithm to adjust for the real life conditions of the platform. Bots, curation trails etc.