It's hard to believe that we have both been on here just about the same amount of time. I joined back in 2018 too. I got lucky and had an "in" so I didn't have to go through the wait process and they gifted me 15 STEEM to get started or something like that. The rest is history. I know they did implement something where if you were to buy a bunch of Hive and create an account you have to wait before you can vote on witnesses. I think having extra measures in place is not a bad thing though. Interesting ideas you have there. Hopefully they get seen by the right eyes.