This is essentially a curation arbitrage.
Apparently, Steem's curation mechanism are not efficient, which creates an opportunity for middle-men to pocket 50% of reward.
Most likely this is a result of a huge votepower inequality (so-called whales). The situation will improve if either distribution will become more equal (very unlikely in short term) or if Steem will provide better tools for whales (quite likely in short term).
Basically, liquid democracy-style vote redirection can replace curation list, which eliminates this problem.
Meanwhile, this might be actually beneficial for all involved parties. (Debatable, of course.)
For an unknown author, 50% of a large reward is better than no reward at all. And if whales are lazy such an unknown author will likely get no reward in a natural course of action. (I.e. the root problem is that whales have more votepower than they care about to spend.)
i guess if i thought the middle men were doing an OK job, i wouldnt have much of a problem with it, and if the curation were open to anyone i wouldnt have a problem with users doing it and the best curation lists getting the whales vote.
the problem i see is basically the same problem as the "botbait" authors these lists seem to have replaced. There isnt really a competition because these few guys are just on a list. Its not like a competing curator/curation list could come out and beat them out.