Could you please implement only one change at a time, so we can see which one actually works? I hear the antilinearists talk about deep thinking, early history, maybe math and game theory, but are any of these proposals based on empirical science?
And has anyone had independent readers rate the Trending page (compared to what?) When I look at it today, I can't say it's worse than my feed. The fact that you need to pay to get on the front page encourages the people who can only afford to do that once to make an effort. And being able to buy attention gives Steem value to outsiders.
There's a lot of nostalgia for the early days of Steem. But you can't say that it worked better because of the original incentives and rules. It was a different situation, with a lower ratio of bloggers to investors. Spammers hadn't discovered how to exploit Steem yet. It must have been a great time if you were a whale or friends with a whale, but we can't turn back the clock.
The original incentives and rules shared a lot of the current flaws (especially with respect to downvotes). That was the first and likely biggest 'wrong turn' that was made on the platform in terms of incentives and having a well-functioning voting system. And indeed it worked differently but not necessarily 'better'.