reading the kinds of possible explanations you pointed to moved me to have questions about stake:
Three types Of possessions that can stake emerge:
1. unlocked
2. locked up rewards
3. locked up non-rewards
one: can you say what This separated camps is for? these "locked up" are all complicated. and What is the reason rewards are different behavior?
two: in 9.1.1 it seems that camps 1 & 2 each age according to some laws ONce they become "mature" -- and they become "mature" after 512 blocks. is it correct though that camp 3 (locked up non-rewards) has it that it matures in some 8 blocks? can you give a clue what is the reason for this very fast becoming "mature" here? It seems to lack stability in principle since you possibly can stake every 8 Blocks with the same locked up non-reward?
three: in 10.1 the idea of "stake modifier" is being discussed there. it seems that at each block the stake modifier for the next 256 blocks are known, as well the fact the next 256 part is known. I Can project a problem. the locked up non-reward can be used to stake 8 blocks next and I can known the stake modifier for this next 8 blocks. now how to solve this problem?
Currency units can be "locked" until a given block height for two reasons. First, block rewards should be unspendable for a certain amount of time, since a reorganization of the block chain might delete the reward. Second, locking assets allows people to trustlessly loan coins to be staked (since the "lock" in the obligation may have a different spending address than the address holding/staking the asset).
I considered only allowing locked assets to stake, but this presents a bootstrapping problem. At the beginning the ledger only has unlocked assets. This is why unlocked assets can stake. An alternative would be to only allow unlocked assets to stake if they are from the initial distribution.
The reason why locked rewards age slowly is that I noticed in simulations that block rewards can otherwise begin to quickly dominate the staking process.
Locked non-rewards are the main assets I expect to be staking. The short maturation time (8 blocks) and the fact that they immediately stake with their full coin-age reflects this intention. In effect, I expect the first few blocks to be staked by unlocked assets from the initial distribution and for these blocks to contain txs creating locked assets which should begin doing most of the staking at that point.
You are correct that the stake modifier is known for the next 256 blocks (and partially known for the 256 after that). I do not see an issue with locked assets. Even if the locked assets stake more often than other assets (as intended), the fact that they (and the resulting rewards) are locked for a significant number of future blocks should prevent attacks.