A few slightly contradictory points if I may.

I have been buying votes via the bid-bots for a while, not always with success but there is a feel good factor seeing a blog over $5 that i'm struggling to escape from.

Approach whales to delegate (or follow) their unused SP. Make deals with them so you can send them (or they send you, in case of following) a percentage of your curation rewards.

I've been requesting leased SP (for all the curation rewards + publicity) as a footer on my blogs for a little while now, as I think if delegations were given to willing curators and monitored, instead of heading to bid-bots, the platform would be growing in a much better fashion.

If/when the floodgates open, we are going to need many more people/teams than @curie, @ocd, @muxxybot, etc. It seems obvious to me that the SP gained by whales will grow the quickest if delegated out to 100's of eyes.

I live in hope... and promise no more bots at 65.