I guess it depends on how you curate. I curate a music contest called Steemit Open Mic and can assure you it is not the least amount of work possible. It's turned into my full time job and I'm working my ass of to build a huge, engaging community of musicians on the Steem blockchain. About 8-hours and many days more to do so.
There are only two kinds of voting effects: one is curation, another is self-voting (and trading, which is the same). Just saying curation has at least a minimum amount of work, the other does not have this. There's no way to properly measure hence the statement.
~50% curation rewards is not reduction, it's increase from the current 25%.
Thanks for the clarification. In that case, I'm all for every one of your points.