The 800 MV experiment was fine. And indeed, we haven't had n^2 or anything of the sort for years. Did it make a big difference? Not in my view. It might have made matters worse in a sense, since there is no ability to attract the true high value (not just crypto) influencers by concentrating rewards according to attention. We had some real influencers when we could concentrate by n^2. They actually drew attention to Steem. Now we have a bunch of mid-tier non-influencers posting photo and travel blogs, and Hive-centric blog posts, receiving somewhat less but still concentrated rewards, and accomplishing almost nothing.

No, you're not going to have a system where a million bot accounts (i.e. "the crowd") get to vote rewards as they like (which will, with certainly be to each other), being paid primarily by inflating away the stake of the largest stakeholders.

It's fine to have something like reddit, with equal, easily botted votes, as long as there aren't rewards. With rewards it breaks down completely.

Any commercial activity, anywhere, at any time, is run by the golden rule. Whoever is providing the gold makes the rules. There is no way out of that.