Yes, I agree losing influence doesn't help but I also think at that stage, the influence isn't in the SP, it is in the ability to engage with others in the community. I would assume that there will be other factors coming that will cover this in different ways too as overall, I think the HF and Hivemind will improve the environment for small/new accounts and offset any potential harms.
Very near zero. Unless you're frontrunning bidbots or voting in front of Utopian you need about 100 SP to earn curation at all.
I think this would take a lot of effort better spent reading a little and commenting well.
I think I made almost as much SP from one comment making fun of Jerry as I've made from curation in the lifetime of my account. Thinking about curation is almost always counterproductive.
Lol. Earning off Jerry gets double points.