You are absolutely right! It doesn't feel right to have hard work ignored. I was with you and to some extent I still am. It's taking a lot of work with minimal feedback unless you consider inattention a feedback.

Last month I found some new advice. Many of the bloggers with the highest number of upvotes and comments on their posts have suggested that the beginning of their success started with a lot meeting people and making contacts. My blog has been doing a lot better since I started putting almost all of my efforts into checking out and commenting on other's posts and just kept my blog to 1 or 2 posts per week (as one of the helpful posters suggested). It is a relatively easier way to get feedback via upvotes to comments you make too! People whose attention I would never have expected to be interested in my posts have shown up and some have even resteemed me. This method is taking a lot more time than just doing the posting but it's slowly beginning to pay off in attention to my writing and in how much fun I'm having.

About the recycled posts of someone else' memes... There are a couple things that are possible.

1. It is a person who has already put his time in with making contacts and is now easing up on the work of producing content
2. It is a person who is a cheater. If you want to do a little research you might be able to find out if they are making comments on other people's sites, if the exact same people are upvoting the suspicious person's site every single time, if the suspect is upvoting anyone other than himself.
   If they still looks like they are cheating you can notify @cheetah and @steemcleaners.