Maybe you shouldn't blame the messenger.
It says we need more compelling content, and currently we are struggling with a lot of crap which can't even outdraw some of the ugliest and dumbest posts on the platform (burnpost)
Some posts do outrank potato or burnpost.
Why is that?
Why aren't there more of those?
I've been thinking a lot about that issue. I think trending can be engineered to some extent. That is, a concerted effort by a group of voters to put exceptional posts there. No exceptional posts? Well then we've got to start out with ones that are just good. If there were a couple of these high magnitude composite votes every day on content (steem agnostic content in particular), I believe over time the quality bar would raise itself, because people could see what is possible, and know if they exceed the effort currently presented, they have a good chance of getting a similar result. Right now we are failing as a community to set apart the great posts when they come, and from a voting perspective they are indistinguishable from from "the ugliest and dumbest posts on the platform" as you said. I think that is influencing morale when it comes to effort.