I think this is already happening. Voters seem to just be preempting posts from trendy writers posting in trending topics. And those voters include many whales. Plenty of quality content is already being completely ignored and there's usually not a whale in sight when it happens...because they're still voting the steemit tags and whatever new social media celebrity joins the platform.
If the voting needs to change, the whales need to take the lead on it. I could give you a few posts myself to look at. This could be a valuable platform doing some really great things. But many of the people trying to make it great are essentially being pushed to the point of non-existence because of simply quicker opportunities for money/power grabs. It's unfortunate.