Great points about the rewards curve and the curation window Dan, in my view those 2 things is one of the biggest bumps to overcome for new users, it means less time to find them and also harder to reach above dust level, which for new users is a real thing, and one that many of them are not even aware of.
The point about earning Hive is because you need it and will continue to need it for RC, ulimately that is the long term usecase together with being the main trading pair for Hive-engine tokens and SMT's.
And yeah SMT's should be layer 1, and also be simple and easy to use, while more flexible solutions can be done on Hive-engine and layer 2.
For investors and long term value the one thing that is the most important of all is a large and growing userbase, and what can be done to make it easy to join and to successfully plug into the community is a good thing, so focus needs to be on new users and getting them to succeed.
Keep up your great work.