The benefits of the CLRC just seem to me to be small compared to the costs.

Under the above example the abuser continues to extract the same value from the system, just through a different method. There is no increase in altruism, nor in manual voting, nor any redistribution of value from the abuser to content creators. Maybe it looks slightly better on the surface but the underlying economics are unchanged.

The costs on the other hand seem high. Reductions in payouts for smaller earners which is likely to include new accounts. Reductions in payouts on comments, harming engagement and reducing Steem's effectiveness as a social network. Reductions in the power of minnows and dolphins to reward content without significant levels of consensus and the influence of whales.

Given the blockchain data is transparent some form of automated data analytics could be used to find such abusers. Combined with automated free downvotes this could go a long way to resolving the issue without all the above costs.