The way I currently see Bitshares and why I'm trying to work on "fair DPOS" clone:
introducing reputation
How novel, somebody should do that.
Bitshares did it in an extremely poorly designed way by having an IPO where it's possible for the dev to to create thousands of mule accounts, send BTC in with all of them, get infinite premine + all his money back, then have plutocratic voting to determine delegates based on who owns the most coins afterwards. The entire thing is a train wreck. You can't get rid of mining for distribution, amongst numerous other changes they would have to do for how their system works to make it not a blatant scam.
I personally think the allocation model was pretty fair, there was a long donation period that raised thousands of BTC via AGS, and you could also get shares by owning PTS on the day of snapshot which is POW. (If it was really short and only raised 21 BTC, I would agree more, though I actually own NXT.)
I'm not a fan of mining as a form of distribution but if that rocks your boat, BitShares-PTS is POW and is still being mined.
(For stakes in future DAC's, when the date is announced, you can buy BitShares-PTS & hold it in your wallet on the date of the 'snapshot'.)
Also unlike the other 2.0 projects out there, BitShares is not trying to create one currency/blockchain to rule them all.
So if you have a better distribution model you are encouraged to apply it on your own DPOS blockchain. The only request if you want their support and endorsement is to honour the social consensus, which is awarding 10% equity to BitShares-AGS & 10% to BitShares-PTS.
The BitShares Social Consensus is the consensus that exists between the BitShares team, BitShares shareholders, and third-parties who would like to use the BitShares toolkit for developing DACs. While anyone is free to use the BitShares toolkit, one gets fully endorsed and promoted by the BitShares team and the BitShares community only if that developer allocates 10% to those who hold BitShares PTS and 10% to those who hold BitShares AGS, as a way to honor their contributions that made the BitShares toolkit possible
http://wiki.bitshares.org/index.php/BitShares_Social_Consensus