I am glad to see you coming to this realization. I have been advocating for eliminating stake-weighting for quite a while. In off-chain discussion with @ned, he said he would address the issues I brought up before SMTs were released, and over the months since I became discouraged.

When he did address stake-weighting in his remarks in Korea, I was thrilled, and became eager to eat all my discouraged words.

"With no solutions in sight, the only thing that can be done is - cancel the reward pool."

I practically went apoplectic when I read this! =p Fortunately you went on to discuss various alternatives, and including what I have advocated, simply making upvotes not stake-weighted.

The rewards have proved to be paradigm changing regarding the quality of discourse and engagement on social media, and I see this paradigm shift as critical to the future. I would fain abandon it with the dirty stake-weighted bathwater.

Coupling some form of egalitarian voting, or rep-weighting, with elimination or dramatic reduction in bots and socks, would create organic valuations of content quality, and that is pretty much all I seek in terms of improvements to Steemit's valuations of content.

I have confidence that people are the best judge of what is valuable to them, and considering popularity to be judged by other metrics, such as stake, simply avoids people, society, being the judge.

For better or worse, people are what we are, and our judgement is thus what matters to us.

Thanks!