UPDATE: Wow.. thanks for the tremendous support behind this debate. I promised @MadBitcoins to share in whatever bounty may come. He will be a happy camper.
And it appears I failed miserably on one of my statements (that has been pointed out a few times) on powering down. According to the bottom of page nine on the white paper:
SP can only be converted back to STEEM over 2 years via 104 equal weekly payments. ‘1 SP’ can be viewed as a share in a pool of STEEM. Likewise, every time SP is converted back to STEEM it is done at the current ratio. Individuals are guaranteed to have more STEEM in the future than they have when they first convert from STEEM to SP. -Steemit White Paper, pg.9
This makes more sense to me now as your SP and vestment amount doesn't change during the powering down process, only a flag on your account that power down is in process and a calculation of currentSP / 104 = powerDownPayOut. Any other input on the topic would be greatly appreciated, but I think I have a good handle on it now.
Again, countless thanks all! I count myself fortunate to have issued this challenge at the right time.
