I was offered nothing in advance to post here. All of the rewards I received for this post I found out about after posting.
This is not to say I don't think there are some issues with the way rewards work under the current system; but I am new to steem and need to better understand the functioning of the blockchain (by reading the code) and the policy decisions of Steemit-the-organization before my opinions there are fully formed and informed. Expect a post on it sometime in September.