Well said. The pitch for this site to users is "post, vote, get paid". Many users of any site are lurkers. They won't post much, even links, but they will vote and many will sign up based on the appeal of getting paid for voting well (also the lottery aspect of voting early for a post that becomes incredibly popular e.g. front page on reddit).
Removing the curation rewards will kill 90% (or maybe 99%) of the appeal in terms of user signups and differentiation in a crowded market.