My grandfather used to say in the past everything was much better. I don't think that this was the whole truth, I mean he even was a prisoner of war once! Anyways...
One solution would be to seperate SP from influence/VP. Not sure if you remember the experiment from @abit and @smooth: that's been a great case study which perfectly showed what could happen if we distributed VP differently. Curating suddenly became fun!
You talk about the original Steem vision, which one is that?
Giving value back to those who create value. Creating a REAL free market where equality of opportunity is given, no matter your financial background / buy-in.
I loved the experiment they handled - the question only is - HOW to implement this separation of SP from Influence, how to define it, who to decide on it? That would probably create a lot wars within the community then too. A public democratic election where every user has one voice maybe? How are sock puppets handled then - hmmm - difficult.
Good vision - challenge: can we define value? "Creating a real free market where equality of opportunity is given, no matter your financial background / buy-in." - nice marketing claim - that is capitalism so it is real isn't it :-)?