I think this is a misconception about how the curation reward system works. Whales will get large payouts on their posts - that's for sure, but they usually get a lot of that payout very early on so there's no opportunity to earn curation rewards.

It's really the hidden gems that have little to no votes that can provide the most curation value. Right now those posts usually never get many votes but if a whale votes on it to try to get the curation rewards then it would make the post hit the "hot" list on some categories and if it's really a good post it could earn even more votes, giving value to both the author and that initial whale curator.

Will that happen? I don't know, i'm only proposing a discussion not to actually make any changes, but it's possible I think it would be great if it could happen that way.