Yes is my short answer to question 1.
Do you think that this is urgent (before SMT urgent), or could be trialed in SMTs when they are ready, or can wait until after SMTs to be implemented 'here'?
With the ideas around a separate down-vote pool / less VP lost down-voting, and a change in the rewards split to 50/50, should these be trialed separately and/or together?
Despite the general feeling that something isn't right, I suspect Steem to soldier on to SMTs without changes. The soldier could well be heavily wounded and smelling of his own crap, depending on the level of 'rent-keeping' before then.
Yes! it is urgent. If not what should we tell people right now? Upvote yourself exclusively until the fix because if not you'll lose ROI to the most unscrupulous.
To the second question, I don't know. These measures onto themselves without some sort of superlinear don't seem to solve the issue. Less costly or free flagging still returns the rewards to the reward pool as I've already mentioned, leaving the loophole open.
Different curation splits will affect the game only if some sort of superlinear reward is introduced.