I don't know, I guess I have a little bias towards upvote bots given I've used them in the past to reward posts of others that I felt deserved much more than they were getting.
I think Steemit in its current state is mostly pay to play, rather than a more balanced approach. You either make your way up from nothing, or pay up for the Steem Power.
It's definitely not great, and I do believe a few changes should be made to balance things out for smaller users a bit more.