I think a lot of users have felt that way for some time and that is why we are seeing some of the enhancements and changes we have over the past couple of months.
Some of the larger accounts that used to take advantage of the trending page and the shortcomings there have left the platform as the price of STEEM has declined. Many of the invested users that are publishing legitimate content have stuck around and are starting to rise to the top.
The implementation of White-lists on many services has helped to cut down on a lot of the spam and junk that was getting added to the STEEM blockchain.
In the end it is going to take a concerted effort from many people to get things to change. If you are new to the platform just stay away from the trending page. I would even stay away from the hot page to some extent.
Until the manual curators can take back the trending page, it is going to remain the black sheep of Steemit that members of the family like to try to forget about.