RE: Steemit Update: HF21 Testnet, SPS, EIP, Rewards API, SMTs!
The SPS is an important change (although hopefully it could still be funded differently). And from the EIP the downvotes is a worthwhile experiment. There are potential toxicity issues but it's the one change that is likely to significantly move the dial on behaviour. It should be possible to clean up trending at the very least.
50/50 could increase manual curation but there are other avenues that will still offer greater economic incentive so the behavioural impact there is hard to call. It would be interesting to see which orcas / whales are committing to pulling delegations and moving to manual curation to get a feel for the potential upside.
The CLRC seems to add very little benefit even when considered as part of an overall package. It also adds a large market inefficiency which will encourage users to work around the system, to the benefit of middlemen. And when combined with the other changes the impact on new accounts / small earners will be huge. That's the part I'd like to see pulled from the HF.