I essentially agree with this. I don't know how deliberate this outcome is and I don't think @blocktrades exactly needs more cash to the extent that they would shut down opportunities for developers - HOWEVER, at least based on historic outcomes, I haven't ever even planned to launch a proposal in Hive because the main gatekeepers to which proposals get funded seem to be operating in a centralised/cliquey way. Perhaps I am wrong and we are only ever seeing a snapshot of a situation via posts online. This is part of why regular video chats are so essential and so missing on Hive - from what I've seen. It's very easy to fill in the gaps with our imagination and reach wrong conclusions when all we see of some people is a few paragraphs of text.

In any case, I don't think having the author rewards pool returned to the proposals pool in a way that bypasses witness consensus is in the spirit of how Hive is designed. Granted, stakeholders have the ability to do that, but it definitely does seem off.