I know you meant this for @edicted, but I have been here and followed the changes. In the beginning Steem had inflation like Venezuela. You escaped that with powering up. Steem was meant to be something you immediately traded when a power down gave you some to another who would immediately power it up. Powerdowns took half a year to complete.

Also when there are fewer people there was a greater per user distribution of the reward pie on average. And yes, prior to the patch called equality, post rewards were super linear.