Now seems to happen what I was always afraid of:
Too much power in too few hands. Not only the steempower in only a few hands, which seems to be taken care of, but also the votes of the remaining smaller users bundled into wannabe oligarchs.
That is why I never gave away my voting key so far and probably wouldn´t in the future. If I understood the system right, I only hurt myself if I don´t vote, the amount spread to the community stays the same every block.
The idea behind the trails and curie and the other systems is good and probably also needed as long as our little society reflects real life society (95% of assets belonging to 1% of people). For the future I hope for more decentralized, personalized and manual voting.
Great questions asked, following the discussion!