[tree limit..] @abit
Ah yeap, leading / frontrunning (not accusing of any intent to cheat backers btw hehe - you're right there's no difference).
IMHO everything that happens is what happens in the free-market, no matter if things look like capitalism or communism or socialism. I've got nothing against solo or group curation - everything has pros and cons. That said, different parts of the free-market will quite simply, develop different structures until it dies off or evolves according to market sentiment at any moment in time.
So how Curie works at this moment is anyone will be able to suggest posts on Curiesteem.com, and there are about 6 of us on the approval side of things (looking to "decentralize" our approval powers too). So there is no account list to support. The only "list" is any account below a certain reputation (level 62 at time of writing).
There's also a curator score / approval rating system in place too to promote great curators and reducing spam / low quality submissions. In that, I believe Curie will be able to scale very well since the "workforce" is essentially the entire community itself.
It's a community project now that incentives accurate, quality submissions - https://steemit.com/curation/@curie/curie-and-community-an-open-invitation-for-all-to-be-part-of-our-curation-works-powered-by-streemian
(Many may not have read it since I guess there's some bad name for guilds in general, so just linking it here for your perusal and consideration - imo, Daily Curie list is getting much better these days)
SG on the other hand is rather different with its growing fixed set list of authors to support (basically selected authors from level 63 and above, at time of writing).