Word on the internets is to the effect that there could be a turning-point after April as far as the value of Steem is concerned. So if Steem does indeed start climbing soonish, one month away is not a loss for you. I think they just need to do away with the flag thing, really.
I disagree, the downvote is the only real defense against negative behavior we have in the current system. If we remove it we open the flood gates for many forms of explotive behavior.
We have all seen flagging being used abusively against some people by some cliques to hurt them just because they disagree, and evidently not everyone is able to respect that which they disagree with. I don't think it is about the price to pay. Just in principle, when users focus on the positive in a constructive way I think that's a better practice than taking away something from someone by flagging. Sure, it will not be ideal, but such is life in general. They have it set up so people can flag items for not being original content, but users are able to abuse this without accountability. If we are going to do this policing here, there ought to have been another layer of a larger number of users to review the flags and in turn affect their reputation on that basis. That would make it multiples harder to organize the sort of abuse we have been observing.
Also be careful most versions of that theory I have seen are based off the 13 week power downs finishing up. But with dan now power down because he has left steemit, power downs will contiue at current rate most likely or even increase.