The payout are written in SDB because if they were to be written with the price of USD or the real value of SDB then because those price chance from minute to minute it would have to be recalculated. We need to limit the computing calculatio the witnesses have to do so scaling is possible.
Also where would we take the price of the USD? Where would we take the price of SDB? Could those price feed be manipulated? There would be a whole lot of questions to be solve even if the computing wasn't an issue.
That's why I think payout are written as the SDB price feed and not the real value of SDB.
Don't the witnesses produce a hard-to-manipulate price feed? That's one of their primary jobs.
If the payouts are going to be posted in SBD, they should be denominated like that and not in USD.
It might be to be able to compare post payout to one another in the future. Even if the price of Steem change I think it would be easier to compare payout. I don't really have an answer. But I don't think we should jump to any conclusion before asking.
Well, like I said, there are 3 conscious choices there that exaggerate the payout. Those are facts from which conclusions can be drawn.