The curation dynamic was also much different under the old system. Almost the entire reward pool was decided by curation guilds, just about everyone else had only a small amount of power. Around the time we switched from ^2, curation guilds were being phased out, and were far less relevant.
At that time, if your post didn't get a vote from blocktrades, curie, or steem guild, you probably weren't going to earn much on your post. Kind of like a lottery, I suppose. I didn't like that system. At one point I had 70,000 Steem Power and my vote was worth like $0.05.
But what does it do to the quality of the posts?
The closer it resembles a day job, the less authors will devote to finishing touches.
If spending another hour getting the wording and images perfect stands to drive the post from $15-$20, we're going to get a lot less finnessing than if the extra effort stands to take the post from 10c-$200.
It was never about fairness; it was about quality.