So at first it can seem like crap posts get up voted. There are a lot of different reasons for why these posts are up voted.
Ultimately it does not matter:
When ANYONE on this platform wins we ALL win. The only way that is not true is if the people who WIN big don't bother voting. If they vote we all win.
So short of envy and jealousy there is actually no reason to be angry about what type of posts get the big votes.
We all win.
Community is important...
A Positive community is more important...
ART ABOVE FROM THIS ARTICLE.
We need to realize this is NOT a Ponzi scheme and trying to fit it into a neat little box. Something like this has never existed before. It is based upon technology that did not exist to make it possible before now.
For this to be a Ponzi scheme you need to have been convinced to spend money. I haven't spent any money and I've only been using this site for a little over a week.
I have NEVER been a big winner, but I've had a few posts do okay in the minnow realm. This still excited me. My account went from $3 valuation when I started to over $1100 today in a little over a week. That does not count the ETH and BITCOIN I now own at places like bittrex.com and coinbase.com. I purchased those other currencies with proceeds from steemit.com.
If this is a Ponzi scheme they are totally doing it wrong. I shouldn't be getting paid if I haven't paid them.
Welcome to a new paradigm...
If you do wish to focus on the negatives rather than looking at the amazing positives, the quality of the posts that ARE making the most tend to make the TRENDING view rather useless to people seeking new things. It becomes important to familiarize yourself with NEW, HOT, RECOMMENDED, etc. If you want to maximize curation rewards then you should be focusing on NEW anyway and hoping your predictions on what is going to be popular are accurate.
I have a request to strengthen our community...
I am uncertain why the steemit developers chose to make the down vote symbol a flag and make it very separate from the UP VOTE button. I have my suspicions why. I suspect they did that so it'd be treated as a FLAG THIS POST rather than as a down vote. Is the post obvious plagiarism of another community member here? Does the post contain GIFs or other material that show pornographic, or graphically violent material without a warning or chance for people to opt in?
Instead I see it lately being used by a down vote brigade. I see them down voting using that FLAG for posts that I can't find anything wrong with other than perhaps it is someone who consistently has high voted posts like 
We should NOT be FLAGGING a post due to envy and jealousy. If heidistravel and guerrint (Tara) vote on your posts they will be helping to uplift you faster. By hurting them, you potentially hurt ALL of us, including yourself.
They will be far more likely to do that if they don't view the environment as hostile...
We can foster a community, or we can foster a JOB where they don't view it as a community any longer and don't care about uplifting others. The choice is yours.
You can down vote brigade me if you like. I am a small fry, it will do absolutely nothing to me.
I will tell you IF I notice and start to learn names of people who are going nuts with the down votes on posts that I can't see anything wrong (no plagiarism, no offensive material) then you certainly won't be getting my up votes IF I ever do manage to get enough to move things along.
You still might if you do a really good post.