"Even if it is, who cares about 20% if this is the way to increase Steem value by thousands of %."
I'm sorry but if you believe that increasing the inflation rate by 20% is something that people shouldn't care about, you are not thinking clearly about this issue.
There's no rational reason to believe that such a decision would "increase steem by thousands of percent" - if only it were so easy.
There are many reasons to expect great results. For example, don't you think such a marketing approach:
Referring to TOP-30 posts/comments idea - this is super easy to implement, no risk at all. Referring to Affiliate Program - depends on where to get those 20% affiliate reward... but do we have any other idea how to skyrocket this project cheaper?
I know for sure - when a project does not have a huge marketing effort for daily promotion across all media channels, just do a non-greedy Affiliate Program. The more you share with affiliates the better - they will skyrocket your project. For example, IQoption - the largest trading website in the world - appeared from nowhere, became #1, billion dollars in turnover. Why? They were not greedy and offered 50% to their affiliates.