One matter that is not much considered in these perambulations is that flags return stake to the pool. Whales extract the vast majority of the rewards from the pool due to stake weighting. Returning rewards via flags to the pool that whales have missed out on extracting allows them another run at extracting those rewards.
This creates an economic incentive for flags. EIP will make this much stronger, as 25% of VP will be allocated for free flags. This eliminates the expense of flagging, and the vast majority of SP, and thus VP, inures to whales.
EIP is a terrible exacerbation of the worst problems Steem is facing, and the downvote pool is probably the most powerful economic negative impact that will be effected. Not one aspect of HF21 will encourage capital gains, and every part of it will encourage extraction of value before Steem price can reflect it.
The market is pricing in HF21 now, and that is why Steem price is falling, market cap is declining, and user retention is getting worse. Nonetheless, implementation of HF21 will make this much worse, very quickly IMHO. If it does not, I will have been proved wrong. I will be happy to eat my words, because I want very much for Steem to succeed.
If those three metrics decline precipitously upon implementation of HF21, I will be proved right. Then we will have a choice: either keep killing Steem by encouraging profiteering, or reverse course, and begin encouraging capital gains, ,and thereby investors.
I have posted on ways to do that. It's not rocket science, and I'll be glad to reiterate mechanisms that discourage profiteering and encourage investing for capital gains as needed.
I also doubt that HF 21 will be the big success everybody hopes (and most believe). However, now as it is decided, I want it to come as fast as possible to see what its real consequences are.
I hope it will be a positive surprise, even if in many earlier discussions I expressed my concerns.