I think bots with pooled sp are a good thing. The idea is that it draws the attention of more people to your post for initial exposure. Without bots your only option is to attract a whale that could help you through their followers. Even the curation rewards are tuned to reward the early voters on posts that become hot, on the notion that the post itself might have been lost if not for an initial vote or comment to entice further readers.
But for a new steemian it is hard to collect money to use bots. They will go away being pissed off without knowing what to do !