I'm pretty sure there will be different SMTs for different types of content.
Not everyone can or should write "elitest" high quality posts. I don't want to sound mean, but many of the new users (starting late '17 / early '18) are from 3rd world countries and nobody can expect from them to write high quality blog-posts as yours.
And we are currently at a time, where many different people are on Steem at the same time. And everyone wants to have some form of success. 1 USD won't buy me anything serious in my country, but in other countries - you can get a whole meal out of that.
That's why you see so many (or saw; especially in early 2018) youtube-rip-off posts & plagiarisms. Again, not everyone is able to write posts or let alone write good enough english (ok sir?).
And to end this comment with an interesting point:
My opinion is that high quality is often getting used for dick-measurements. Oh look at how big my much quality my posts have. I've spent so much time stroking writing it. And yours? Just a few seconds. This doesn't deserve any votes.
I really like your post and I think that it's well written and well thought, but reading it takes brain power. And sometimes, you just want to read a bernie shit-post with a bit of humor; regardless if it's true or not.
But I wish you all the best with Gleeming (pretty cool name).
I think you're largely correct and I enjoyed your honesty and humor. I've seen time and time again authors not engaging with their commenters, churning out wordy nonsense and being arrogant to boot.
I don't think everyone should write super in-depth posts, or that those who don't should be punished or ridiculed. I do however defend those who choose to attempt the in-depth path as a pretty normal angle on trying to build an audience. It might be for personal gain, to advance (or shill) certain ideas or just for the fun of it but it's not necessarily elitist. Thinking hard and writing about it is important and again, very very normal.
We are now in a world where so much knowledge is available that self study by almost anyone with the time is possible, and possibly life changing. The elites have lost a lot of their control of knowledge and I think that trend will continue massively. I advocate throwing off the appearance of elitism from knowledge as something standing in the way of it's normalcy.
Good point on the scammers and frauds. It is a litmus test for what gets rewards. However rather than see it as exposing a requirement on authors, as you suggest, you can see it as the lowest cost / highest chance solution for the scammer so I think you're looking at it backwards (but not wrong). It shows (a) that copy pasta is cheap and (b) there is a good chance of reward for something deep and interesting.
But as I said bring on the cats etc., but expect everyone to be into what they're into.