I've been here for about a month too and have just about the same opinions you have. I love the general idea of steemit and I can see the underlying complexity they created to try to reward who should be rewarded and prevent abuse or scams. Just go through their FAQ and it will be clear.

However, I still think there's way more money grabbing things here than actual valuable content. People try whatever they can to get views and upvotes and bots are part of it all. It's ok to advertise and use the means you have to get more views and following, but the focus should always be the content and not what goes around it. And the platform should ensure what "goes to the top" is great content, no matter who made it.

Just rambling a bit :) I've been having trouble finding well written articles on steemit so I think there's still quite some work to do until it becomes a platform like, for example, Medium (and hopefully better!).