Trending is completely pointless unless you are an aspiring author. Even then, you may not receive the feedback you want. The posts I have sent to trending have always had worse engagement than my regular normal posting.
Most seasoned bot users know how to use bots to turn a profit. Only amateurs stick with the big bots in hopes to gain visibility and/or profit.
Some money-driven individuals use bots to gain quick reputation scores to harvest airdrops available to Steemians (Byteballs, atomic wallets, etc.). The result is a bunch of empty shell 60+ rep accounts. It would be great if the bots could not raise rep, but that is only possible if their rep is reduced to negatives.
The problem is not so much reward pool rape, but more of "runaway printing of Steem". Most people don't burn their tokens at @null. The increased supply eventually becomes sell pressure to the overall price. So, it turns out, the "cheaters" always cash out first. Your average aspiring authors are left with the short end of the stick, or sometimes holding the bag.
Dear @enforcer48
Thank you for your kind and mature comment and taking the time to reply.
I fully agree with you.
That's very true. I finally start seeing bigger picture. Thank you.
Yours
Piotr