Technology can help us have both. Here's one way:

When we have a list of posts, either in Trending or Hot or New or Promoted, or inside any tag, a dropdown can be added that allows you to order posts by 1) reward and 2) number of votes (and possibly even 3) number of views). And also another option can be added to filter the posts so that only posts for which the payout is still pending are visible.

In this way people will be able to reorder the posts so that the ones with most reward or number of votes are on top. This way you will get the presumably best quality posts at the top. As you scroll down, you will get less popular and less rewarded posts. At the bottom will be the newest posts that have only a few votes.

As people vote on posts with little rewards or votes, those posts move up and become more easily noticeable by others. The higher a post is, the more people notice it, and vote on it if they consider it good.

What will make people scroll down and down in an effort to discover quality posts that have little rewards or votes? One, they will have financial incentive to be among the first to vote on the quality post they just discovered. Two, they will be voting on something they appreciate, thereby making it a nice experience for themselves, giving a material "thanks" to the author, and at the same time knowing that they improve the whole Steemit platform by helping quality content become more popular.

Thoughts?