If you'd cut out the subjective view of "massive circle jerk", you'd have an economy where tokens have to be staked to get an APR of 25%. Sounds pretty good to me. The only thing that's missing is an actual use-case of the token, which HIVE has with RCs.
They getting a massive 25% because very few people are getting most of the rewards and it is really easy to predict where to put your vote for maximum curation rewards, far in excess of your vote amount.
Sabotaging the integrity of at least three popular front ends so only a few can profit is so worth it though and I'm sure everyone will appreciate it. I miss having chbartist trending five times per day, don't you? And all those plagiarists need a home as well so why not make it the trending page like the good ole days? I mean, 25%! What could possibly go wrong? So what if people think we're a scam like they did last time we tried this. I mean, look how well it worked the last time. The value of the token stayed high and never dropped, even as all the people left and were replaced with reward farmers along with those only here to suck profits out the easy way and run. Totally worked! /end sarcasm