The biggest problem as I see it is people backing the "favourite horses". There is no incentive to dig for gems!
... only to back the old reliables, when they're fresh. The current system is fucked, quite frankly.
Curators are sitting waiting for whales and celebs, while awesome content falls through the cracks because the author is "untested". As far as I'm concerned there should be LESS reward for voting for someone with good form, and MORE reward for discovering good content from someone untested. - Right now it's like horse racing, but the favourites are the only horses worth backing.
Indeed.
Aditionally the system is very complicated, so it is hard to blame people for their behavior.
A top down solution is highly necessary.
The sad thing is for users, that the only way to fix these problems is by writing articles. I bet there are already thousands of good ideas out there that show solutions, but nobody sees them.