Takes away % of the reward pool in control by the STEEM POWER holders and put it in the hand of the Steemit Inc nominees

This point is certainly so valid that it is reason enough for me to question it myself if Steemit is making a right call giving out delegations. Despite the fact that our business does receive one.

2-4 I'm less convinced of. I'm critical of Steemit Inc and many fundamental ideas of Steem, and let them know about it and why, every single day. (Although I see no point in joining the hate-train and bitterness that many have felt the urge to jump on in recent years). Also, I don't see how having a delegation is a big plus for being a witness. Imo it has done more the opposite where stakeholders who knows how much me and @howo does, full time, to work on Steem and test HFs still don't vote on our witness because they don't want to support businesses or apps receiving delegations. This far outweighs any small benefit it may have of attracting votes from our satisfied users, which are most often smaller votes. It's also worth reminding people that delegated stake don't influence witness voting, so it's not like we have a larger witness vote (I assume you already knew that).

My main pros for the delegations would probably be these 3:

1. The projects have to use their stake responsibly in order to maintain their delegation. Meaning that outgoing votes are almost entirely to users. I can say fore sure that we have retained hundreds of Steemians who would not be here and use Steem without us. That is not something I can say for most whales. So due to the expectations of the delegation receivers to use their stake responsibly, I think one could argue they've allocated new Steem better than most whales have (who often get involved in vote-trading/circle jerks or worse, vote-selling).

2. It may only take 1 app to go mainstream for Steem as a blockchain to rocket. Since as soon as one attracts the masses, they will all be on Steem. So delegating to projects is one way to increase the chance of at least some doing really well, even if that should not be steemit.

3. By having successful businesses grow on Steem, it showcases the value Steem Power can have for businesses elsewhere. This can directly create demand for Steem if we can indeed grow successful projects with delegations.

In any case, I can understand why people find it controversial, and I agree that there are some big negatives with it. However, it's not as simple as saying that it would be better without them, as existing whales and stakeholders still have everything to prove that they can use their stake to benefit Steem any better, and that we thus want to give them higher influence.