That was quick.
Removing half of the rewards the platform is based on at the first sign of trouble does not inspire confidence.
Preventing the bots that are causing the problem, and putting more effort into balancing the the effect of regular users vs whales for curation rewards would be more useful. Multiple regular user votes should be balanced to have the same effect as a whale vote, or the regular user will stop voting. Every vote should count for something especially en masse, not just the insiders.
If you want to fix this without scaring off the userbase, a public request for proposals and a vote on the popular ones would inspire more hope. (more than, hey this isn't working out I think I'm gonna scrap half the reward system).
People have invested time and money based on the rewards promises, how you handle this will influence future investment.
Proposal coming...
The more invested monetarily in steem the more you have to lose. The more you have to lose the bigger you influence should be. Your vote in a company you only own 1% can't worth as much as someone who own 98%. A competitor would just by 1% worth of the company and vote stuff to make the company go bankrupt. The weight of your vote must be proportional to what you have invested monetarily or otherwise.