So what if there is no incentive to respond to comments? Why the hell does everything have to be about incentives to make money, and if there isn't one somewhere, then it's not worth doing... Jeez, but yes, many people operate this way, and it sucks. That's why manual curation isn't too popular because hey, just auto-vote and save yourself the trouble :P
That's an interesting idea. Someone would have to code it because I doubt Steemit inc has any interest :P
This trustless smart contract revolution isn't about trusting people to do the right thing. It's about forcing them to do the right thing. When you join a smart contract community, you agree to the rules and the rules are hard enforced. If we want people to do things we should at least be giving a small push in the right direction.
Wouldn't it be nice if everything just worked perfectly even though the space is massively underdeveloped. Yeah! It would... but... at the same time, would that really make sense? It's more satisfying to struggle and accomplish something than it is to be handed it on a silver platter.