Your concerns are also my concerns.

It seems most of the top SP holders (the whales) do not support the layers below them in the SP pyramid. Some to more of the top SP holders started to capitalise on their SP, through selling/renting their SP or launched their own vote sell service giving them more revenue then before.

I also noticed quite a few of early day Steemians powering down, not only Dan, but more, many more.

I personally think some of the power needs to be re-distributed; How that shall be done is the question.

I for sue dont have an absolute believ in the good of Steemit Inc and (some of the) powerful users; This is fuelled by the fact that until dec'16 a hyper inflation with correction was build into the Blockchain that made some of us super rich in SP/Steem (sorry, I have no exact analyses done, but with 0,6% inflation per day it is easy to do the math).

On topic of power and witnesses. I suppose the witnesses with a lot of power decide. And I suppose the power in Steemit Inc for witness votes can steer (some of the) witnesses to a certain wanted behaviour.