Hopefully we will one day get a strong witness system, I still think that is what needs to be fixed first. I honestly do not see the issue with the rewards pool as is, it just seems like ever since I joined steem block chain that has been the number one issue for all the witnesses, and the number one reason for the last 3 or 4 hard forks, to fix the reward pool.
Let's get the witness selection/retention system fixed, secure the chain from what happened over on steem. Then lets ignore how the damned reward pool works for one year, and start fixing the user interface, adding and building on the markdown language used, more features to help make blogs look more professional.
It's time to actually try to make it work.