My preferred solution for delegates:
1) They are trusted and able to maintain the network
2) They publish a budget on who they plan to fund and generally don't do work themselves.
3) They coordinate with other delegates.
If the role of delegates is to manage up to 1% of the spendable budget then we can hire many delegates. Lets keep it really simple, if you don't know how to run a node ask for funding from a delegate that does run a node. If the delegate thinks it is worth while and won't cause him to lose his spot then he can support you.
Thus at the end of the day you only have to trust that a delegate can make wise evaluations about the performance of the real workers while maintaining a node.
I agree with this. though...
I think this begs for variable pay rates or perhaps multi-sig delegate pay over 3%? Or do you see delegates just haveing multiple sub accounts. 100%/80%/50%/25%/3% ... or just a 100% and a 3% and a promise to burn. Or just a 100% and a promise to burn.
What i fear is a delegate gets 100% pay for some project. Its completed, but the pay remains. Rather than lose his spot, the delegate feverishly searches for somewhere else to spend the cash. Fills up his project board with candidates etc. (Its surely easier to keep 100% pay once you've got it, and usually leads to waste/inefficiencies) Or do you campaign again to have your 3% delegate re-elected. ... or promise to burn the 97%(multisig could force burn)
voter apathy should default to base 3% pay, not full 100% pay based on prior projects.