"Problem is that they kinda borked it on Steem due to a combination of factors. So...curation here does kinda suck. Usually when they say curation they either mean just a whale getting paid for voting with his stake, or a bunch of minnows working way too fucking hard to find "good" content that should be rewarded, and getting paid pennies for their effort."

I think rather than a combination of factors, it is the results of one specific factor, and that is replacing actual curation with profiteering, or the ability to extract financial rewards for upvoting. A combination of factors borking curation results from this incentive to upvote, and contradicts incentive to recommend creation with incentive to extract money from creation.