you nailed it

When I started you could give 1c for about .6vests.
It was really satisfying to pay $400 to move the needle 1c. That's the only reason I added money to make my vote matter. I wonder if the changed the exponential curve to some kind of polynomial if they could let smallish accounts "matter" at $400 and but the whales to takeover in the end. I imagine $400 would be enough to deter Sybil attacks.

Also if the whale down votes were as powerful as ever they could correct obvious Sybil attempts

So basically 0 influence to 1c from 0to$400then it's flat until $5000 or so then it starts growing exponentially again.

This is more simple than your two classses of users method. Just change curation formula.