many extraordinary posts that day are going to bite the dust being shadowed by that celebrity

Somewhat, but that is oversimplified and contributes to a zero-sum mentality. Yes it is true that the pool is literally zero-sum as long as the STEEM price doesn't change, but the effect is pretty modest. Currently the reward pool is about $100 000 per day. On the day he made $15K, approximately $85K went other posts. If you didn't earn, it is because your post didn't gain an audience and get votes. It is not because TDV took all the money.

In fact there is concrete proof of this. If I recall correctly, the very same day that TDV got $15K, the Playmate got $12K (sorry if not exact number). His success did not prevent her from also doing well nor did her success stop him from doing the same. And despite both of them getting historic payouts on the very same day, 73% of the reward pool was still available for other posts.

If your posts aren't getting rewarded, focus on marketing and promoting to develop an audience and improving the quality of the posts to increase conversions (how many people who see the posts vote for them). Pointing at someone else who is (in some vague sense) responsible for you not geting 15% of the reward pool rather than focusing on why you aren't getting a piece of the other 85% and what you can do to change that is doing yourself a disservice.