When I joined the platform, top authors were making thousands of dollars per post.
In most cases I would prefer using the term "popular" instead of "top", but anyway, I think it was only possible because of the n^2 rewards curve we had these days.
I am in favour of implementing a convergent rewards curve, but more or less against the other two changes.
Apart from some whales most people won't downvote anyway because of fear of retaliation.
(OK, maybe some will create alt accounts just to get the curation rewards for downvoting them). :-)
I also tend not to cut author rewards not to discourage newbies even more than it happens already now.
My STEEM Vision. is a concentrate of my thoughts concerning problems and chances of STEEM.