There is another effect of having bots tipping the scales for one post over another. That is, it gives a false impression of what is popular and that makes marketing oneself to the communities here much harder without having an accurate picture of what "sells" on this site (not that I really concern myself with that on my own blog). I think it leads new users to believe that all they have to do is post crappy pictures to be sucessful here because they may not be aware of the bot issue. When that sucess doesn't come they get fed up and leave.
I don't know what the answer is. I know that a lot of people say that they don't look at trending and that is fine on a personal level (I fall into that group too) but trending is still the face that we present to the world and that is an issue we can't address by turning away from it.
As for myself, my account is pretty tiny in terms of SP so I don't know how much change I can effect. I have helped flag down some people for stealing content but generally my goal is to grow my account to the point that I can make a real difference. I just powered up everything I had and to over 100 SP which isn't much but it is a start.
I do hope things can be worked out. I like this site despite it's issues and I like a lot of the people here. I want to see us all do well if we are willing to work for it and I would like to see steemit really take off.
I can only speak for myself, but it is a mood. We need more eyes on the site and we will get them.
I hear you on the popular thing, which is why I feel like if they knew someone was watching and flagging it would happen less often
I can't prove it though.