I think the problem essentially is the holders of the biggest upvote have purchased their stake, and mostly just wish to earn a relatively easy income through it so they tend to delegate to bid bots to get a good return on their investment.
If those same big stake holders followed a few curation trails instead using an auto-vote service, they could be actively voting on content themselves and still earn through curation. The majority of communities on Steemit now have dedicated curation trails that follow members.
The most active posters on here tend to be the ones with the smallest stake, because of course posting is the best way to grow if you can not invest in directly. It's frustrating for me personally to find on a daily basis incredible quality posts that never receive the recognition they deserve - part of that is the lack big stake holders making use of their vote - but also gaining visibility for a post is just too hard. I don't have a solution to that, but hopefully something is being worked on so the visibility of posts is based on merit because currently it's just how much money someone wants to spend on Bots. I will say I think the @curie team are doing an incredible job, spreading out throughout the community and supporting excellence with a rewarding upvote - I regularly see the posters I enjoy getting @curie upvote which at least means someone supports quality content on here.
I think it will still take a very long time for distribution to balance out, but there are plenty of people and communities here actively working to support, retain and grow accounts. You only have to look at communities like @thealliance, @helpie and the incredible work @welcomewagon does to see real people working hard to make Steemit a more friendly environment and educate new and starting out users on how to improve posts and grow themselves.
