Upon checking, you're correct and I was mistaken. Since Fork 18 at least, delegatee retains the curation rewards. That's relieving to hear that actually. But interesting that the documentation hasn't really reflected that. So I didn't even know I was getting to keep the rewards of that. That's actually awesome.😆

Such is a minutia in a broader point though.

I feel the point still remains, I'm still voting by proxy. It's not my Steem Power. It's not my money. I can't feel attached to it or protective of it like I do my own money. And I can't necessarily use it like I would my own money depending on the contract I have with the delegator. many lease contracts for instance have terms. And many delegators will rip away a delegation without hesitation if you go to far against their grain- even if you paid for that delegation.

Delegation grants me the ability to distribute more grant money from the government. It grants me the influence of the delegator by proxy. Second point remains also, if those I vote for support me back, they're supporting me with grant money from the government. 👀 It's not like they're sending me a transaction from their wallet.

I like to send lovejuice bid bot to people's pages to express a wallet to wallet sentiment sometimes, because it's just different to me.

I think it's actually better that we keep some of the curation rewards, since it requires work to curate. (I spend hours on this Steem platform. Gosh, not even making minimum wage. Giving out other people's money.)

Steem is built for self-love means we benefit regardless of how we frame it. And it's actually designed to not punish or reward selfless vs selfish activity, rather- activity period is positive activity. As long as positive activity takes place, everyone benefits. The only negative activity is less overall activity.

Scenario: All whales power down, what happens? The price of Steem plummets and everyone loses value- including each dollar the whale is powering down. If whales (who are not witnessing) are simultaneously selfvoting (mining), their powering down won't drastically effect the price of Steem or their own loss of value due to powering down or inflation- while they  power down.

I ask then therefore this, if we know the value of every Steem shrinks every day, and we are holding investment that earns interest but not to the return rate of inflation, how do we protect the value of our own investment.