Overall, I don’t think we disagree either. How centralizing forces might lead to gaming of the Network is a question I’ve raised before, and @Neo helped address:
That being said, it sounds as though the ability to prevent collusion is dependent on network size and composition (i.e. is the network large and distributed enough?) as well as how MaidSafe designs the reward structure. Most people seem to prefer expending the least amount of energy/effort possible. So, I think it’s only natural that the Network will trend towards centralization as a “few” people who are willing to exert more effort than the average person end up providing a larger proportion of the resources (i.e. farming) to the Network. We can’t expect the Network to naturally grow in a fragmented rather than concentrated fashion unless the reward structure sufficiently dis-incentivizes such. This brings us back to the matter of designing a reward structure that can’t be so easily gamed.