Any system that encourages more people to continue writing, and to continue writing with a focus on quality, is worth a trial run in my books.
I'm with you there. This is one of the main reasons why the Word of the Week is still running.
Do you envisage that those with high voting power would still be able to vote independently of the curation scheme proposed if they wanted to do so?
Of course. Larger stakeholders can follow curators if they like with an adjusted vote weight percentage (ie. if they followed behind at 50%, whenever the curator voted 100% on a post, they'd follow with a 50% vote, 90% -> 45%, 80% -> 40%, etc).
Flexibility and freedom to join or leave curation trails is a big benefit because there isn't a waiting period like delegations do (one week to return delegation after undelegating), and rewards are also not affected.
I do think it sounds very well thought out and I hope everyone supports the idea. It also improves on diversification of reading habits too :-) I'm away this weekend but will definitely join WOTW from next week. I enjoy writing prompts. They push us to explore and write more creatively.