Now that I have comfortably read all the comments and joined in the ones I could relate to, I will now leave my comment.
The truth about manual curation is that it is time consuming (speaking from experience) and most people simply want to avoid the stress of added responsibilities hence the bots have to do it all, but the reliance of bots/autovotes have made certain individuals lazy to actually curate posts.
An example is when someone is on a fixed percentage of autovotes from whales, the person's contents might not be carefully evaluated and yet will be given "free" votes. To such a whale, he is curating, so when people shout for votes,`he feels o well, I am voting a couple of people so I am not selfish.
Now the downside is some might put a good author on autovote, but on something like 1% because of the reputation score of the author. Such a person no matter how well he/she writes has been condemned to a fixed vote and has to compensate by messaging people and practically asking for the votes which might/might not amount to something.
The voting system is filled with so many complications like timing and all that deserving posts get missed.
Now if we say let us employ the services of manual curators who won't post but vote, I will tell you what will happen, the curator's friends and favorites will end up getting more votes plus the numerous alts of the curators will be enriched.
The truth is this is more of a structural/organizational problem than a logical one, because for everyone plan made to reward authors, the current system of voting/rewards creates more issues why there will be more complications.
Solution
The top members should really sit down and answer this question: Is steemit a money making Cow or a vision? If it is the second, then certain things need to be reviewed like the voting/reward system which favors just a few and neglects the many.
More people should be groomed and raised to at least Dolphin like level to match the amount of exist minnows and red fish. That way it becomes a system of helping each other grow because the only a few receiving good rewards with decent SP actually take time out to also reward authors. Some are concerned with making and powering down only.
This brings me to my third point. The power down mechanism could be a tool for curation. A system where each powerdown is only successful if you have attained a certain level of curation and engagement in the community (I don't know how that will happen but it sounds good).
Think of it as locked SP that can only be unlocked with curation and engagement.
A buddy system where whales and Dolphins with a decent SP are encouraged to delegate to 5 apprentices and the apprentices must vote a specific amount of people daily. The donor can then channel his attention elsewhere and curate more...
My two cents tho
Edit: That being said, I resteemed and upvoted this because you spoke my mind.