Perhaps the open voting system and curation model is imperfect to start with (with large numbers of participants for this reason) and with this pressure of it being devalued a new app on top will evolve, and this issue is us seeing the evolution in action. So I don't think tinkering with the base mechanics there will solve it; let it fail, and something better will come out and if it's working for the creators, then maybe that's the best curators out there...the bots.. and human curators were needed just to get steemit the push it needed to get started...are human curators chasing a dying industry?
Options? Ok. I would think that people will always pay for quality and stay away from spammy things. So first, I agree, I like the Patreon style for a high value curator.
An idea: Or maybe there's a way for a human curator to create a 'magazine' (lack of a better word, but you get the idea) or pay-wall hidden application that curates older well-written posts. For example, maybe I write 20 awesome posts over the year, and I made some money on them, but they're effectively disappeared from my feed now, so I can pay your magazine a fee to include them in your upcoming release of your next 'digest' so I get exposure to my personal profile. Or maybe I just buy advertising in it.
The issue I have with steemit, is that it's designed to always be now, now, now and no rewards for a great post later (unlike Youtube that continues to reward for views). So perhaps an older good-quality post can be included in a 'magazine' to bring me attention now.
my two cents.
(sorry for the duplicate post below, that was Steemit, not me.)