The whitepaper also has 52+ week power downs and exponential whale voting.

Actually, it doesn't. The copy I pulled that from was rewritten last year to match the current state of the block chain. The link is here - https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf

And it says:

Users are able to commit their STEEM to a thirteen week vesting schedule, providing them with additional benefits within the platform. STEEM that has been committed to a thirteen week vesting schedule is called Steem Power (SP).

And

When users vote on content, their influence over the distribution of the rewards pool is directly proportional to the amount of SP that they have.

And even if it had been obsolete, that wouldn't change the thrust of my comment which is that high SBD prices incentivize authors at the expense of voters and other stakeholders in a way that discourages quality content discovery.