These are the questions that are worth asking, but you have to think like an adversary in order to determine the viability. :)
One important aspect of curation rewards is that it is economically incentivized to vote for a post that will be voted on by other people. The reward for doing this is greater than the reward for you creating a post of your own and using that vote on your own post instead. For example, say, I could upvote my own comment and earn 5 cents... or I could use that vote to curate and earn maybe 10 cents.
If there wasn't curation rewards, one would be economically incentivized to only use their voting power on their own posts. Why should I upvote someone and earn 0, when I can still upvote my own comment and earn that 5 cents?
We're stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Unless .. you have a population that votes because they actually like something in stead of one that votes for making curation rewards. There are other motivations for voting than just the economic ones. No idea how it would play out in practice, though, so feel free to call me naive 8-). I know I vote for things I like without considering curation rewards at all, and not just because I hardly get any anyway with 5000 SP.