ETH is going to PoS, not DPoS
If you want an example of DPoS with ETH features, that's exactly what Tron is.... of course Tron's governance is as broken as steem's
You wouldn't know that looking at the Tron blockchain though.... no way to communicate tied to TRX, so no communication about TRX governance unless it's off-chain. That's also unsigned, not stake-backed, and disregarded. If Tron users gained TRX by speaking out on chain, they would likely do so and Tron could be doing much better despite having a benevolent dictator

Yes, in your model staking affects governance, but only stake. In our current model, people mix and mingle ideas in an open market of ideas. What you're taking out isn't the advantages of holding stake. You're taking out the incentive for lesser stake holders to promote their ideas to stake holders and gain more stake themselves. The competition is what creates the value. That isn't always the type of governance conversation people might expect - often the competition is over something like bot usage. Sometimes it is directly the reward distribution. Either way, this stake-rewarded competition gives HIVE its value. If you want it to get it's value from L2 solutions and staking, there are shorter paths to get there than HIVE