Interesting point of view. Yes, 50/50 will reduce a lot the rewards for authors.
Regarding the new reward curve, the difference with linear rewards is not very big... around 6 steem of difference in the payout. Yes, for minnows maybe this is a significant value but not impossible.

https://steemit.com/steem/@jga/complete-guide-to-understand-rewards-in-hf21-part-1

https://steemit.com/steem/@jga/complete-guide-to-understand-rewards-in-hf21-part-2