By trying to make it so we limit progress as we stand at crossroads never taking any direction.

If Steem is left open, progress can be made on the application level. Please see my and @smooth's [indirect] reply to @edje's comment above.

There is already limitations that any app developer would have to work around

This is true. Specifically rate limiting of comment replies vs. posts. But there isn't any reason to make more hurdles, first of all. Second, arbitrarily changing the basic rules of rewards distribution does not make an inviting platform. I'll point again to the replies to @edje above.

I also remember you at the forefront against removing that portion of curation rewards, which made the implementation easily gamed.

I agree that curation rewards on a separate comment pool are a bad idea. I touch upon it in the fourth paragraph. And further, removing any more curation rewards thus eroding SP earning potential should be avoided as well. It's not mentioned in this post because it's a non-factor. The separate comment pool, as it is in v0.17.0, has curation rewards.

These things considered, both having and not having curation rewards for a divided reward pool aren't good options.