>If dash and bitshares does it...why would people scream scam? It's a proven model.

As far as I know and as I stated earlier those Steemit funds are there to be used for promotion (amongst other things).  

If Steemit Inc started asking for money from the reward pool for that you can be sure people would start complaining and those who already call Steemit/Steem a scam would use this to justify their accusations.

I'm not saying it should never happen.

Once those funds are depleted I can understand it but right now I'm not sure it would go down well - I could be completely wrong though of course!

>If you want decentralized decision making for the funding projects, you cannot have that done through Steemit Inc holdings.

I'm not sure why - what is needed is a way to speed things up and that could be done technologically - in either a decentralised or centralised manner.  

I suppose the way of doing it would be to create a new account which would be controlled via a smart contract and transferring a certain proportion of funds there.  

Once those funds run out and assuming the community is willing then the reward pool idea you suggest could be implemented.

>There are tax considerations too when it comes to touching those holdings.

Not sure about that - Steemit have been using those funds for development already.  If it were such a problem how would they be able to do that?

Anyway I do like the idea I just think the funding thing would need to be considered very carefully.