Yes, things change over time, but why customize STEEM to work better for curation rewards and fighting abuse if the ultimate goal is to use it as a base token?
Things change over time, but messing with inflation and curation rewards has the potential to impact business models, profits, etc. That's a pretty big risk to take on a blockchain that doesn't seem to know if it wants to be a base currency to trade SMTs on or rework the incentives to be a content discovery platform.
Both discussions are important (changing the economic model & the base-currency vision). The idea of reducing inflation drastically is actually not new, because we gotta ask ourselves: Is the currency distribution working - and if not, is it necessary? Or is it more evil than it does good.
Now, the good thing is, once SMTs are there, we can test out different economic models. There could be a curation-SMT, where curation is at 100% and no author rewards. And maybe an SMT, which works 50/50 or 25/75, as it is right now.
All true, and worthwhile experiments, but where do the SMTs get the rewards so that they can change the reward distribution when, in your model, there will be no author/curator rewards?