I agree with @craig-grant and there should be a small percentage given for upvotes and a larger percentage of STEEM given for showing the content has been read.
I don't think there is whale hate, but I think folks want to see equal opportunity, like you've said @barrycooper.
Another measure that would help is to remove the trending and hot sorting features. As it stands now, a curator will only see what is popular if they don't change their default sorting. It should be word-of-mouth that fuels post traffic.