Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on your experience with steemit, I really found it useful! I'm still new, one of those who left steemit for a little while because I got a little discouraged blah blah blah, but I've realized the potential so I've decided to give it another chance :) Bots is one of the reasons why I got discouraged- because, like you mentioned, tons of low quality posts get 100s in earnings, but a thoughtful quality piece of writing will only fetch pennies.