My guess is that you could likely nab $20-30K worth of Steem per day — in small transactions — multiply by a year or so, and you've got a chunk of change

Maybe. I don't do much in the way of trading, so I don't have a guess about the market liquidity, but the total new STEEM production per day is 90k * 0.16, or $14K (at current prices). Based on my limited knowledge, I would expect the strategy to include off-market purchases of some of the top-tier accounts. Interestingly, I noticed this morning that HIVE's corresponding number is 0.85 (thanks to a deep reservoir of exfiltrated wallets), so I guess someone would target the HIVE DAO before the SPS.

But it IS all highly hypothetical...

Yep. Totally impossible to anticipate how the system would adapt to any attempt to gain control. Interests me as an indicator of value changing over time, not as a predictor of anything that's really going to happen.