I feel that their should be rewards for people that are early to upvote content that becomes very successful. (This may be in place, but it is not been a concrete fact in my mind). This will keep people checking the new feed instead of only what is trending.
That is exactly how the system operates right now. People who find posts already in trending and then vote for them get little to no curation rewards.
RE: People Rank - Using Page Rank Algorithm for Better Curation and Rewards