You made a great job explaining this problem in this article. Indeed users with great stakes are milking the system and Steemit is bleeding cash.

Unfortunately, the problem cannot be solved by banning bots. If you ban bots, they'll find another way to circumvent this ban.

The problem is in the algorithm level, in the way the rewards are distributed. The algorithm favors the whales and that results in the reward pool abuse that we experience.

That problem in the algorithm can easily be solved, but we need to raise awareness about this issue to bring it to the attention of the developers.

Otherwise, I'm afraid that Steemit won't be a long lasting project.