Well, I think this is kind of playing down the situation by comparing struggling Steemers as used car salesman trying to a mine gold amateurishly.
A lot of the complaints revolve around the disparity between the their vote/SBD ratio and those who have caught the eyes of whales because they have the potential to catalyse a hike in Steemit user base. Some people could argue that quality of content is subjective but a trend was formed and there were a massive sense of indignation that resulted in an attempt to diversify the content.
https://steemit.com/steem/@steemed/removing-authors-of-steem-posts
I guess in a way, I see what you are saying and it's nice you are trying encourage others but the metaphor you have used are pretty inept and paint a false picture on what's been going on. I love Steemit because I have genuinely discovered new content everyday and it sucks to see people who put a lot of effort in, get shit tonnes of vote but only garner pennies for their efforts.
The point is NOT that that they were clueless and have missed the gold vein. The gold were given to those who can't even dig.