I have come to the conclusion that BitUSD and other asset will not reach parity with the underlying asset they are supposed to be pegged to for a very long time.
There are two main reasons for this; the first is because most of the people trading on Bitshares are big Bitshares fans who are overly bullish on BTSX. The second is because there is no good reason to buy BitUSD at the moment.
Let me put it another way - if you think that the price of BTSX is going to go up, you are incentivized to short USD. If you think the price of BTSX is going to go down then there is no reason to buy BitUSD instead of just selling BTSX for BTC or something else.
Arbitrage doesn't work, because performing arbitrage is a bet that the market will return to the peg, but if these bets themselves are the only reason for this to happen, then its a foolish bet.
At the moment there is demand for shorts, but no demand for buying BitAssets. Perhaps the 5% would change this, otherwise the only thing would be mass adoption of BitUSD for paying for things, which probably isn't going to happen until after the peg is proven so isn't much help in this regard.
If the 5% thing is coming along soon then perhaps this post is irrelevant, but until then I think delegates need to step up to the plate and start buying BitUSD. Its my understanding that delegates are earning quite well now, but I haven't seen what they are spending this money on to support Bitshares, which is supposed to be what they do rather than just keeping all the pay for themselves.
Please - calling all delegates - step up to the plate and bet on the market peg working by spending part of your pay on BitUSD whenever it is more than perhaps 1-2% below the value of USD, because you are probably the only ones with the resources and motivation to do it.