At this point, I think that the voting mechanism is an inefficient way for stakeholders to get their rewards, hence why I believe that the global rewards pool in this form isn't providing much value to HIVE.

I have to challenge the logic of your argument. When you say inefficient what do you mean? From where I see it it's very efficient, it allocates the rewards based on the rules ingrained in the code...those who receive votes by more stake get more rewards.

If by efficient you mean allocating rewards to the "most deserving" (aka more popular, higher quality, etc) the answer is no because it is not designed that way.

On the other hand if by efficient you mean the easiest way for "investors" to get their cut of the inflation then the answer is no. The most efficient way would be to just pay interest to staked coins.

The whole purpose of the reward pool is to distribute coins. In that sense it is no less efficient than a POW or a pure POS chain. The only true reason to remove it is to give coin holders a bigger piece of the pie.

A better question would be Does removing the reward pool make the coin more attractive or does it just turn it into a worst version of what is already out on the market? (I am thinking ETH 2.0 or even EOS).

Did the reward pool stop steem from going to 8.00 on the 2017 bull run?

To be fair I agree that the future is in 2nd layer apps that need RC and that therfore create organic demand for HIVE. However I do not see how having a reward pool stops that from happening.