This is an interesting debate and clearly not an easy one. Might a combination of the techniques maybe work:

1. Half (or any other percentage) of the reward pool is distributed the way it is done today with linear votes.

2. The other half is distributed using the n^2 technique.

I personally would also like to see a reward which is not based on SP but per head, but I understand that this might be dangerous due to sybill attacks. However, maybe the option to show posts with the highest number of votes might help as well, as this would show you the posts that post people have liked.