I think that worker proposals could make a difference. I see a lot happening in a positive direction without this system in place. If implemented it could increase that momentum... but it may not be necessary. The community seems far more empowered to create without help from STINC or any other leading force.
I am not against the idea of WP's. I am not sure if it is needed, but I can certainly see the positive that could come from that system.
That said... more inflation on the blockchain is not an option in my opinion. If anything, we should reduce the inflation... the author pay is at the whim of many (near) random factors already anyway. The only place that the funds can come from is from author rewards, and, as you said... they have the least required skin in the game. Raising the Steem price could offset that quite quickly too. I was making $8 steem (and $17 SBD) when writing articles a year and a bit ago... so the whole argument is kinda moot because the pay (no matter what % of the pool it is) is completely dependent on the price of steem way more than the % allocation.
Witnesses need to be compensated to a point where they can at least afford to pay the bills. The blockchain depends on that.
Thank you for your hard work.