The current system favors those who do engage in absolutely no work, aka proof-of-no-brain-needed. How could it be worst?
Indeed..
That would be irrational. Linear devalue the whole platform and thus Steem.
Not sure if I'm willing to concede here with that statement, but I get what you mean. It'll be a hardsell for anyone who can put their fingers together in figuring they're being shortchanged immensely for the system.
Regarding slightly superlinear, I think it would only slow down the desirable effects of superlinear.
Yup, our proposal here is an in-between solution for the individual and the collective. I think there's good evidence that n2 did not work as well as expected. Sure it amplifies and contrasts contributions to the greatest degree, but are users generally happy? Maybe in a purely elite community. I'd give it to Dan for figuring out that linear is highly undesirable in first pass though. That's certainly not something that's obvious to most developers.