Part of the case for being able to downvote so heavily is that once a post goes into minus payout, it is hidden. This is fine if you think that hiding posts is a good thing, but many do not. I personally think there should be an option in the settings for Steemit that allows us to decide individually if we want posts to be hidden or not - that is the fair approach on an 'uncensored' blockchain. Part of the problem here is that of copyright infringement and illegal activity which might cause the site to get shut down if posts are not censored in some way. Allowing the crowd to participate in this is better than having a central authority doing it, but when the crowd includes members of the actual corporate structure who have a lot of power, then we have central authority by proxy.
It's a major challenge to overcome and whoever correctly balances the needs of all parties will produce a system that will absolutely thrive. We aren't there yet.