Great analysis.
Asher's engagement league is a really good way to consider engagement and real rep, too. The people on the top of that list are well known and often well rewarded.
I never look at the trending pages, but it seems interested to compare. It will be better in a couple weeks.
Asher's engagement league is interesting! Thanks for mentioning.
My suggestion's specific point is to link voting power and engagement. I am not 100% sure it's feasible on Hive chain, if implemented I believe it impacts a lot.
I'm not sure if it could happen in realtime, but it could be altered once a week or once a month based on the previous week or month. It would probably have to work on content already rewarded so it couldn't be manipulated.
Actually, I think it would be a great idea if some kind of revenue sharing needed to happen because it's a better judgement of popularity than what we have. Also cooperating with other Social Networks to determine external influence would be good.
If it isn't entire chain, at least setting it up using an SMT or community may be practical (pay a couple Hive a month to be assessed for revenue distribution and get analytics).