I agree 100%.
Rarely do I ever look at the trending page...the main one at least. Maybe it is because I know it is nothing but circle voting or bots...either way, the same people on it. If I am interested in something on there, odds are they are already on my feed since I follow them.
I prefer to focus upon the hot page...there is more useful information in there.
I also tend not to vote on the posts there (unless I catch them early on my feed) because they already have the money in them so curation is low.
The trending in the categories is much better especially the smaller ones. Topics such as bitcoin, steem and photography tend to mirror the main trending page since those tags are so popular (and misused).
Great idea...not sure it gains any traction sadly.
It probably won’t be implemented on Steemit.com, but maybe it could be implemented on some other steem blockchain based sites that pop up in the future. Also if someone actually could design it and code it and submit a pull request for condenser you never know what might happen!