@yallapapi, I fully agree with your analysis, again.
I want to add the following:
1.) Vote delegation is the worst engineering mistake of steemit, because it allows the operation of voting bots.
2.) The killing of the view counter is the second big mistake. Even when I am not here for the votes I have at least to know if someone reads my content or not. That feedback is as important as comments or votes.
3.) There has to be some flow-in of fiat money into steemit and this should be done by advertising or affiliate links.
I would propose a system where those are limited to only one defined place on the posting side and the klick revenue generated should be shared 50/25/25 between the content creator, curators and all steem holder.
4.) Skin in the game: Very true! I believe that such changes proposed by you and also by me to some extend should be more likely at the current price levels as the whales are atm the ones loosing the most money.
But one should be careful to know how they got their power.. if they got it by buying and posting in very early or for free their motivation and pressure point is likely to be much different to a whale that bought in with huge amounts of fiat and /or hard work here on steemit at a later point of time - that's skin in the game.
This is your mistake right here. Don't propose a system because nothing you or anyone else does is going to change the system. You don't have control over that and neither do I.
Take a look at how the system works now and figure out a way to use it to your advantage. Pretty useful skill in general, not just here. Meanwhile, complaining about the system and spitballing "a better way to do things" doesn't get anyone anywhere.
I see where you are coming from and this is definitely a way to think about it.
However you also make suggestions for some not so small changes - which by the way I believe are well founded - and I believe we have every right to propose changes here and I also believe that user feedback is necessary.
And I personally also have the right to decide to dump in money and effort here, or not, or somewhere else.. as everybody has. Just imagine I that I could have some expert economic background about what I am talking...
For me it is very obvious that if you create a (sub-)system that makes no economical sense or has no real use to somebody it will die and just be rendered useless by other systems.. and that's exactly the case with vote delegation and voting bots...
As I have no big skin in this game I could also just wait and see how this whole thing collapses.. however I see the great opportunity and potential in the steem and steemit basis and user group... hence I want to make a contribution to change this for the better..