As far as I know, before the hf19 there wasn't less abuse from the whales side. And if you want to enter in a wahles mind read this: https://steemit.com/steem/@snowflake/enter-a-whale-s-mind

The ones who have the power and can abuse - will abuse! Unless they are very honest. The current abuses from the minnows is only a small fraction of a percent (in value) compared to the abuses perfromed by the whales. What's if we give them full control? I queried the blockchain and found that before the HF there was a small group making thousands of dollars on every post, and the otheres 0. Now it's alittle more distributed to more people.

There are many reason to communicate on Steem even if people don't receive Steem for what they have created. Just like we're not asking money for everything we do for others.

You think that everybody will watch the trending posts getting paid thousands, andthey will continue to write post for pennies? You should check how much profesional writers quited because of the poor performance on steemit, where you had to get the attention of the whales that just didn't bother to dig in the "new" section to find something valuable.
Curating was meant to reward finders of good content, instead it's a second income of SP holders regardless on what they vote. The real curators will make the same 0.001 sbd on every post quality post they find.