Good points!
I think it's important to differentiate investing in Steem aka buying and powering-up/staking of Steem.
The latter is needed if a person wants to be able to earn passive vesting-inflation, as well as being able to participate in the voting-game, which includes earning of curation rewards. Last but not least, staking is also necessary to participate in the witness-selection/blockchain governance. All of this requires the participant to accept a 13 weeks powerdown timeframe.
Now, the 13 weeks powerdown period is only preventing people from investing, who would only buy Steem if they could stake it with a lower powerdown time. However, I'm betting that the majority of people who have a problem with 13 weeks, will have a problem with 8 weeks, 4 weeks or even 2 weeks.
It's also important to note, that a certain powerdown timeframe requirement is good and necessary. Voting for witnesses for example, should be for those who have skin in the game and not just for exchanges that are using their customers funds to vote (which is happening on EOS). But also from a security perspective, having your "investment" being locked away for 13 weeks (while only 1/13 is available each week) is a great security bonus. Now, I obviously get that this is not for everyone, most people don't have a huge chunk of Steem in their wallet. Which brings me to the point I was making all-along within this subject:
Dynamic Staking Pools & Powerdown Periods
Look, if you want to stake Steem aka power it up and be able to power it down within 3 days, you should be able to do that, but with restrictions. For example you would only earn a fraction of the passive inflation. You wouldn't be able to vote for witnesses or the SPS. And you wouldn't be able to vote for content.
All of these different Steem espects could have their own minimum required staking period. For example: the passive inflation would grow depending on the locked up period of the user. (1 week = 0.1%, 3 years: 5% ~rough example) or voting for witnesses could require a powerdown period of 8 weeks. Voting for content could require a powerdown period of 2 weeks and the earned rewards could require a powerdown of 1 month, to reduce sell-pressure.
I obviously get the point about making Steem not too complicated, but this is the job of interfaces like Steemit.com, Steempeak, Esteem, etc.
If the question is: what is preventing investors for investing in Steem? and what can we improve to change that for the positive?, then the answer isn't just: let's reduce the powerdown period to 4 weeks. Sorry, but the answer to that is far more complex and will most likely require some kind of dynamic system which isn't enforcing one time/rule for everyone.
Instead of higher APR from staking for longer period, what do you think about witness and SPS voting power multiplier?
For example we can stake for 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, and so on with upper limit.
STEEM staked for 1 week has x1 voting power multiplier for witnesses and SPS
STEEM staked for 2 weeks has x2 voting power multiplier for witnesses and SPS
STEEM staked for 3 weeks has x3 voting power multiplier for witnesses and SPS
up to the upper limit
This will be very simple to implement (at least compared to separate inflation pools or multitiered privileges you propose above and I proposed before on thecryptodrive's post, vastly simpler than Dan Larimer's proposal while solving the same problems) and comes with completely custom stake periods. Power down will need a rework like example below:
All of my thoughts are very practical, so I'm not completely certain which way is the best to introduce the least overhead for Steem/the developers.
Whether we have separate inflation pools or one inflation pool with separate individual staking rewards (2 months = you get 5% of the pie, 6 months = you get 10% of the pie), as long as the end result is that stakeholders will have the ability to decide on how long they want to stake their Steem for, in return for benefits (increased APR, witnes & sps voting rights - maybe even with a multiplier, etc.).
This will result in a far more stable outcome, which can even be marketed in a really good way: Invest in Steem on your own terms, as if we'd go the quick and dirty road of changing the power-down absolutely.
Thank you @therealwolf and as long as I am able to stake my Steem for 13 weeks without anyone being able to withdraw my funds in less time, I'd be okay with people who were also able to take advantage of a shorter power down timeframe via your dynamic power down idea 👍
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