As much as it hurts to say this, I agree with you.

There are some great articles and authors who do get recognition without paying bots, but they are the exceptions.

I believe if we don't get a handle on this issue, it will be the eventual demise of Steemit as we know it. At this point, the only way to be comforted it to consider it as advertisement cost, just as it was google adwords. The solution I believe will be to flag posts as to how much promotion went in to it.