I only discovered Steemit in August, and since signing up have had a similar problem. I find the overall layout of steemit a little disorganized and searching for quality content can be quite time consuming. I don't have a good answer for you. I can't differentiate between why some posts become quite popular and receive many up votes, but are still low quality content and the many new posts, some of which are quite well written. Steemit is still an infant platform, and will hopefully improve over time, till then keep browsing, and try to engage with people you like. I have read your other posts and enjoy your writing style, which is why I have taken the time to reply to this one. Good luck with the quest sorting through the maze of content on steemit.