First off, I read the whole post and the remarks that were made up to this point. I do not know that they are very important at this time. The last 4 steem forks, and likely more all have tried to fix the reward pool function.When are the suggestions going to come out to fix the WITNESS SELECTION process? Perhaps one of the reason the reward pool has not been able to be fixed is because it steps on to many toes.

I am one of the consumers that nonameslefttouse mentioned in his response. I came to steem for the purpose of consuming content. I post on occasion, but mostly vote and comment and consume. Drop/disallow/remove the self Vote option, for content and for remarks, make it not exist any more. (O-kay now everyone can tell me all about why that won't work, it won't work because of fear on the part about not being able to earn something to make an ROI). I have yet to read a single reason why the self vote is so important, that made any sense to a consumer like myself.

No manual vote and at least one manual comment once a quarter(4 times a year), no right to vote for witnesses. If an investor does not want to look after his/her investment at least on a quarterly basis, they have no right to decide who the witnesses are. Just my opinion.

Fix the witness selection system first then maybe the reward pool issue can be seen in a new light and be fixed by witnesses that were/have been chosen by the actual creators, consumers, and interested investors.