Bingo. Except I do not know or understand the exact mathematical formula used to predict potential payout value and the decay of... but you're pretty spot on with the games one could play should they create a bot network and invest some steem into them.
My hopes are in someone building something similar to this only with bot preventions (let's keep the Network human, save all this A.I. experimentation crap for steemit) and a better policy on spam and flagging. THAT is a crypto-based Network I'd be willing to put any actual cash into.