So, everyone who over the last 4 years has built their stake and invested in risk losing the value of that stake in price, but as long as the ecosystem and community survives (potentially through a fork or sister chain), their stake can have more value than it previously did. The less voting stake there is out there, the more effective the active voting stake is. This means that more people (those with any stake) will have more of a say over what gets rewarded and what doesn't, as there will be fewer large staked distributors (the applications) than earlier. This is a good thing, isn't it?

If it plays out like that then yes, it's all good. However if it just means that investors lose their stake, and platforms on forked chains become ghost towns, then no.

I think we really need to concentrate on fixing the mess that's gone on these last few weeks.

Perhaps the result of this would mean that instead of targeting applications for reward, contributors would actually have to spend more time developing the kind of content that gets rewarded by the community itself.

This isn't impossible, however for that to happen, you need lots of users. Without rewards Steemit, Steampeak, Busy, et. al. wouldn't be as popular because the audience is relatively small when compared to other platforms.

Man, I hope it doesn't all fall apart, we need to stick together and take this place forwards!

Cg