However, not all of those discussions are optimistic. Quite a few are pessimistic. Mostly by content creators who feel the reward-cut is unfair. Some might even feel as if they're 2nd citizens on Steem and that the TOP witnesses are trying to take from the little guys.

They feel entitled. I think they don't realize that they essentially are being tipped by other people. (People buy SP, thus have the right to distribute some amount of newly created tokens, and elect to give it away -- rather than self vote or delegate or sell the votes.)

If the ratio is too unfavorable for hodling and curating, no one would do it, and there would be no rewards. Maybe 50/50 isn't even good enough.. maybe 5/95 would actually be better for creators long-term.

It would mean more people hodl and upvote (and upvote at fuller amounts).

But many people, I think, look at STEEM as like "magic blockchain thing, post blog make money". They don't think about the incentives and where the money comes from.