I have some similar concerns about whether the incentive structures reward the behavior that ought to be rewarded. The idea of the curation reward is meant to give people an incentive to seek out undervalued content, but sifting through chaff to find wheat is a lot of work and the chance of getting a nice reward for it are [The odds of finding something good] * [The odds that a lot of people or people with powerful upvotes find it and like it after you do]. I've been thinking there's some kind of signal/noise problem there, but I haven't fully worked out my thoughts. Personally I have a hard time finding stuff to "spend" my upvotes on, probably because I have niche interests that aren't well represented here (yet?). However, the vision and the prospect of being able to get rewards for generating creative or intellectual stuff is so enticing that I try to keep hoping that things will work out well in the long run.