If bid-bots are the problem, why would you increase curation rewards. Such an increase would only increase the incentive for more people to use bidbots. Why not find a technical way to effectively outlaw bid-bots?

If self-voting is a genuine problem (and I am not convinced it is) then disable the ability to self vote (yes people could create a second or third account - but the friction of logging in and out will eliminate some of it).

Maybe the answer is to add a non-rewards voting capability that is used to determine trending, hotlists, etc. It may be more pure because there would be much less incentive to game it.

Finally let me personalize the look, headers, footers, etc of my blog so I feel like I have more ownership of it. Improve the search tools so content is more discoverable. Show links to related content to drive me deeper into the site, etc.