The only thing that can change the current state is a fork. It's what changed the last stale-state steemit was in about a year ago. Though I assume people will adapt someway to "maximize their profits"
I agree though. The voting bots have destroyed the whole structure of community engagement :( Things were more 'community driven' back when whales were in control of post payouts. But all the minnows complained then too.
I think the voting should scale to how many vests you have along with a max cap on vote weight per post. Say, 1x vote can only give a post a maximum of $10-20, universally.
I'm not a developer though, just a couple cents thrown in the bucket.