I disagree :)
If there was such thing as a curation fairy, and said fairy could magically make the curation rewards formula incentivize voting on the content that the voter believed adds the most value to the platform - I would be in support of that.
If that happened, it would literally make no difference at all. thats what you don't get... all these bots chasing curation rewards -- they don't have a meaningful effect on reward distribution. If they just stopped voting (or if they changed their behavior to vote for other things) it would change nothing. the real effect of what youre talking about, even if it does everything you believe it will, is shuffling around a bunch of nickles and dimes.
At worst they're exacerbating the problem a little (by piling on whale list posts). I won't say the effect they have this way is insignificant, but its relatively small. "mini" if not "micro". (though the only reason its that is that there's one or two bots that are whales, like wang)
And no. I don't think the whales the bots are following are motivated primarily by curation rewards. I think most of them have their own agendas (good, bad or indifferent) about who and what they want to promote and reward.