Authority maintenance is a joke anyway, I don't see why it should even be a factor in the decision.
As for starters, you can have some piss-easy curiosities (like something that takes just Wilderness Survival, a rock and a branch to make) that are not really worth it for a developed player, but are good enough to buy those first skills.
Curiosities seemed kinda tacked onto the study system, I think they can be easily separated design-wise, but I guess them coding issues might be quite serious.
If art assets are the issue, you could introduce curiosities gradually, nerf activity LP every time you add a new batch of curiosities, till it's finally removed. You can also replace the current skill acquisition run-time, there's really no need for reset. Sure, some people may feel it's unfair to them, but screw them, it's an alpha, if they want a feature stable game they should come back when it goes beta. The only thing you can't change mid-server is the mapgen, so I think resets should be all about that.