Decreasing the threshold and set it in dollars can make counterbalancing the initiatives to be much harder.
Basically this proposal splits SP into two different kinds of assets with different initiatives to hold - this adds complexity and changes economics.
I think we need to wait until guilds and votes delegation are implemented and see if this solves the problem, if not this proposal can be revisited.
RE: Whales - Can the community buy out a portion of your influence?