"Small groups/individual actors face retribution if they attempt to flag something, even if a post is blatantly plagiarized are you going to risk your accounts reputation to deal with it?"

It is exactly accounts like @steemcleaners that create this problem. By posturing as the solution, other users leave the problem to them. This same dynamic has created a vast increase in criminality in the US. Prior to the turn of the 20th Century, there were few police in the USA, and much less crime - because people knew they needed to provide their security personally.

Armed civilians can prevent crime. Police cannot, but only play historian after the crime has been committed. In this way police actually cause crime to increase, because ordinary civilians leave their security to the police, and police cannot prevent crime.

Absent @steemcleaners, ordinary users would have to police Steem themselves, and the possibility of being individually targeted in retaliation by abusers would have been resolved, easily.