Ooh. I've been poking around this just recently just to see what's happening. I found this post: https://steemit.com/dtube/@dtube/curation-and-economic-update

which confirms what you are saying. Moreover, it is saying that the beneficiary amounts are distributed in proportion to the rshares of the curator. No sqrt penalty, just direct deal. Pretty interesting result, so the overall effective curation seems to blend some early-voting bonus with linear staking curation.