@aggroed has had some excellent ideas from the past posts I've seen.
Having a way for the "masses" to reverse an unjust flag as a sort of veto power is a decent idea, but I'm not a coder or Steemit, Inc. guy. It would seem to be a decent compromise between both sides too. When there's clear abuse, people would have a way to reverse it. The whales still keep their power and wealth too.
The other problem is that some of the worst characters have multiple accounts. How do you get it so there is only one account per human being?
I don't think that's possible, but a reversal by the masses as a veto would be irreversible. The abuser having multiple accounts would not help them.