I saw that too. Personally, i think the #curie team is one group trying to improve the user experience by rewarding talented effort, which will increase the quality of steemit over time because we will be able to (hopefully) retain more talented and professional users.
I agree with a lack of centralization and censorship, but this particular group has set some specific framework in which to operate. Just as they had the freedom to create the group in the first place, they had the freedom to set parameters in which to operate.
To respond negatively when people are attempting to do positive things is unfortunate to see. People can choose to be here, or they can choose to leave, but if I thought that Steemit was a P.O.S. I would leave.
Keep up the good work!
To be clear, my title was controversial on purpose, I think that it's a Steeming pile with potential. Many of the positive replies including yours have shown that underneath there may actually be some magic ;)
I've used a similar image before, but I created it as a new logo for those 40-some immediate upvote bots that were upvoting every article in #steemit some time ago.
I told them that the first 40 upvote bots to hit my post would be the winners of the image to use for their introduction post, since none of them had made one yet. Within minutes, 43 or so had hit it, and I laughed like crazy.
I'm glad that I could encourage you and that the positive replies were well recieved.