I have a variety of thoughts on the subject.

First, if self-voting is such a bad thing, as has always been said, then why allow it in the first place? It seems the easiest way to deal with self-voting is either to prevent people from being able to vote for themselves, or to have everyone automatically vote for their post when it's posted. The second option could even be an incentive for more people to power up their Hive. Either way, instead of trying to fiddle with the systems this way and that in order to discourage self-voting, why not just solve the issue once and for all.

Personally, I don't vote on posts for the purpose of obtaining curation rewards. As a result I don't have much Hive power and that doesn't bother me. I vote on posts if I like them, and that's the only criteria I follow. If I happen to come across a post or a comment I like, I vote on it.

Keeping that in mind, I would be okay with removing curation rewards entirely. Let's think of the YouTube approach for a moment. People on YouTube vote on videos they like just because they like them. They don't get anything for voting on the videos other than knowing they helped a video and a creator they like. There's no reason a system like that wouldn't work here. It could lead to more honest curation, more honest votes, and it could help to better promote good and popular material.

After all, Hive isn't supposed to be just about the cryptocurrency. That's a very nice incentive and it's a way for people to be compensated for their time and work and it's also a way to help content creators monetize their work without using some of the more questionable means of other websites, but Hive is also supposed to be a blogging platform, a sharing platform, a content platform. A place where people can share their creations and quality content rises to the top, which can then help inspire other content creators to join the community as well.

Besides, the curation system just adds another layer of complexity which can help to dissuade new users in general. When it comes to things, especially things involving cryptocurrency, simpler is always better. That's how you get more users to join and sign up and participate. Make it too complicated and people won't be interested. They'll just continue with whatever networks they're currently using. Make it simple and easy to get into and people are more like to give it a try, and more likely to stick around.