I should also add to that:

One other gripe I have (which hopefully can be proven wrong to me) is that there is an implicit assumption of correlation between ability to write popular content and ability to rate content produced by others. This may in fact be the cause of whale creation, logic as follows:

A content provider (presumably) is going to have a narrow set of interests. Any steem power directed to said content provider is unlikely to move outside of this set of interests. Once new users see where most steem power is accumulated with respect to tags, their content will be adjusted accordingly, as they each aim to accrue as much steem power as possible. The current system provides positive feedback to a small subset of interests (as your article describes). Given the feedback loop due to the implicit assumption made above, it will be increasingly difficult for new areas of interest to crop up and become popular

It would be very interesting to see a concentration of steem power wealth (measured by how much of the total steem power outstanding is owned by the top 1% of steem power owners). Despite the best intentions of steemit, I presume this looks similar to the distribution of wealth within the US, which would be a real shame