Reading through what you're saying and combining it with my work your way up mentality leads me to one conclusion.
People will need to step up their curation game. We can't simply depend on a few tweaked parameters here and there and place the full burden on someone else. If all we have to do is push a simple button, but refuse, aren't we just as much at fault for keeping people down to the point where they can't interact with us?
What do people really want here, I wonder. When massive amounts of SP were being delegated away and centralized into a few hands, then offered back to the public for a fee, where were these complaints about how pay to play won't work then? Why is everyone suddenly so up in arms now...
I'm trailing off, signing off. It's time to think about things.
When there's still no incentive for curation. Yeah.
That losing attitude won't get people very far.
Two years ago, I started at the bottom, with nothing.
I've earned exactly 1072 SP through curating alone, in two years. I pressed that button 21007 times. I'm sure that helped a lot of people. Plenty of incentives.
There are incentives ;) 25% paisve reward for curation
and the fact you will make someone happy with that upvote, without costing you any money in charge