You and I think very similarly. I think it is an appreciation and tolerance for variance ;)

You make very good points about it being easier to get an ROI with a smaller SP and it's harder for the big whales to get a high ROI. Maybe that is why they do what they do. Sometimes so blatantly....

Curation definitely needs to be fixed because some of the big problems we see today are a direct result of people (like me) giving up on putting significant effort into Curation. Reward for flagging is an interesting idea. Might have to stew on that one for a bit as it could be open to abuse too.....

As for your AI suggestion to identify Circle Jerking I was thinking that EXACT same thing yesterday. It is going to feature in one of my next Grey Area posts as I have been thinking about how I would frame an SQL query around identifying circle jerks. This kind of thing is going to get easier as AI gets better.....but then again abusers will probably get smarter too.