Another proposed reduction is to posting rewards. A random number I came up with (that would significantly make Hive more appealing) is decreasing posting rewards by 10% and moving that 10% to Hive Power inflation. In other words, while posts would earn 10% less, the Hive Power people have staked (powered up) or earned over time would have an increased inflation rate. In short, Hive Power would have a higher APR. That should incentivize users to buy, power up, actively participate in governance and participate in curation to earn more Hive Power with compounding returns.

I think it would be important to do an analysis of things prior to this implementation. While I agree with what you've said about HBD. I'd be interested in seeing the amount of Hive that is powered up by the average content creator vs. investor. I believe that reducing rewards for posts would further degrade quality. (I know this is subjective.) That said, we could quantify everything by having two defined groups: "investor" could be a person who doesn't really post, vs. "creator" someone who at least semi-regularly posts. Then we could look at the total value invested into Hive by both groups. Just a thought, but I think passing judgement on this anecdotally isn't always the best way as Hive is a complex ecosystem and there are many different factors at play.