I do agree with your research as well as analyses, however, you may have overlooked one factor. I have dome my own research also based on the period of time I have been writing on Medium and trying to decipher how curation is actually received I have noticed something. Many articles that do-follow all the curation guidelines as well as being of very high quality and quite unique in their own niche/topic have not received any curation although (talking from my experience) I would say they deserve it. On the other hand, many articles that are not bad, however, definitely not the same standard as the first story mentioned and even jump a few guidelines happen to be curated. This does not happen very often but, there have been a few incidents and I have discussed it with other writers as well.

Another interesting fact that I would like to point out is that in some topics it is a lot easier to get curated, (based on my experience as well as knowledge on Medium) leadership is the easiest topic to get curated within. Again, I may be wrong but, I am talking from my own experience. I have also observed that for different topics, curators are looking for different things, such as in writing, for example, they want more unique ideas rather than just the usual ‘5 steps that will make you a better writer’ and to simply be more innovative. Medium is still hiding the way that their organization actually functions and it has definitely changed a bit this year since the start, for some in better, for others in worst.

I hope that they will keep their promise to hire more curators!