The account creation process has been throttled by design in the early months to onboard in a controlled manner and prevent rampant sock-puppet and bot accounts.

Thanks for admitting this. Totally agree with your rational argument you just presented. But the problem is, these promotions were posted primarily via the steemit handle of the founder. This in a way increases the social status of the founder. Why didn't you guys consider running all of the contests using a handle like @whalesharecommunity or @whalesharecontest ?

That would have eliminated this centralization towards the creator. What you guys did increased the influence of founder significantly. Or could it be that, this never came to your (meaning the whole team) mind?