I think the magic will happen when we get a wave of mid tier plankton you can drop 10-50 cent upvotes en mass. At that point the number of people who enjoy the content will match the value of the post.
One of the things right now that is going on is that steem power is very top heavy. Even someone like me who is just an early adopter is in the top 1% of steem power some insane crap like that.
But if we can get a nice layer of plankton on to the site then it will be more of a meritocratic environment.
For now I stick with people I know from the start and help upvote so we journey this together. Curation is weird as there's no return, better to support friends (who post good stuff).