I think you hit the nail on the head around the voting incentives. For the average minnow you get basically no reward for curating content and taking the time to read through others posts.

I wonder if the voting rewards were just less weighted towards the big guys that would help. That and giving a little more of the rewards to the voters (maybe 35% goes to curators?). At this point if a whale creates a post and then upvotes themselves they get 85%+ of the rewards which does not seem very sustainable.