To quote traf, now we have an economy that is paying people $1000 everytime they take a dump on the streets while we have a mayor that thinks building skyscrapers to attract tourists is the answer. Nothing wrong with skyscrapers - it just takes time. Plus the tourists are and will be arriving at a smelly street filled with dump all over, which is why Steemit's web ranking has been slipping away.
If we think about the situation mathematically, n^2 is basically a "tax" on the long-tail under linear rewards, which gets transferred into the top end thereby creating a clear consensus and contrast based on stake-weighted voting. That's basically sacrificing many individuals for the collective. This is the reason why we thought to try something out between linear and n^2 to balance things out. There are a bit of some other tweaks proposed by @trafalgar (check the comment).
Some may say we shouldn't change the fundamental design (of rewards) and add better "offchain" solutions to minimise the trolley problem, including the sentiment that there are no magical numbers that can fix the problem. I think there is a magical region, just like how our planet is in the Goldilocke's zone. Maybe Steem is flying too close to the sun at the moment lol.