IIRC @surpassinggoogle did admirable things with the @ned delegation, even if the others didn't. Science is a process of testing theory, and building on experimental results. I'd strongly advocate even random delegations and immediately withdrawing them if the delegates began extracting rewards for themselves rather than upvoting others.
Delegation is practically a no risk undertaking, and even if only 1% of delegates prove worthy, that's a significant benefit to the platform.
I do not expect such delegations, because Stinc serves the whales, and those delegations would cost the whales money. Wish I was wrong, but don't think I am.
While I follow @taskmaster4450, this indicates interest in his posts, not trust in his judgment. No disrespect intended, but I'd actually prefer the delegator to choose to whom to delegate, rather than availing any outside party of the authority to do so. Neither do I think Dolphins particularly appropriate targets for such delegations, for reasons.
I recommend modest delegations, in order to create an effectively better distributed stake, precisely because it would cost the whales money. Either stake gets distributed better, or Steem fails to grow. If Steem grows, capital gains will result, and whales will be but temporarily discomfited. Cash being king, I know of no whales that will endorse this, and the present state of bidbots and rewards extraction is a better gauge than my opinion.
Sadly, I am pretty confident nothing will prove me either right or wrong, as it would be necessary to do some delegating to do so, and that's not gonna happen. EIP seems certain to eventuate, however, and that pudding will provide proof when it's served.
I'm not gonna say he's completely worthless, but citing him as the paragon of using @ned's delegation is a far stretch. VERY far stretch.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@littleboy/how-surpassinggoogle-s-showing-love-impacts-negatively-on-the-steem-blockchain
Eventually, he did take steps against abusers, but hey, the gravy train was great while it ran.
I reckon he undertook to distribute Steem to the best of his abilities, rather than seek personal financial returns from that delegation. Given his situation, education, and abilities, it would be unreasonable to expect flawless execution of curation. He began several initiatives and Ulog continues to be used on Steem. #steemgigs was a great idea, and it's really too bad it's not today providing a gig market of consequence.
He wasn't trained in business, and I reckon he was biased in favor of 'the little guy' due to his experience with corrupt government, and this made him vulnerable to scammers. We all have faults, but I see no basis for claiming that personal aggrandizement was one of his. With better help, I think he'd have been more effective.
But then, we all would.