I agree wholeheartedly. This seems like a very easy way for a lot of STEEM to go to a few users, making it harder for people new to the platform to make a genuine difference.

The mechanics built directly into the blockchain should accomplish what smartsteem is trying to do, in a more decentralized and more fair manner.

The fact is that humans will always have biases, and a small group of people (i.e., the smartsteem reviewers—only 8!) will have a very narrow set of biases. These will necessarily influence the selection of stars, biasing which authors get propelled to profit and which don't.

I trust the masses more than I trust smartsteem to determine which content should be valued.