Link pay-outs to engagement too. Create an engagement score and apply that to the payout formula.
Therefore it is not just your SP that governs pay-outs but also your level of engagement. How many unique comments did you receive, how many did you give? And if your upvotes were always on the same account, or handful of accounts, there will be a negative effect on your ES. This way we can get away from a punishment mentality and concentrate on rewarding the accounts that foster and pursue engagement.
Also bring back view counts and link them to proof of brain.