From what I am gathering reading, one just has to impress a whale and you will be gifted. From what I am gathering using, people concentrate far too much about the pay on this site, rather than the potential it has. I bet these same people didn't complain when they made the same crappy posts on their Facebook or tumblr for free.
I have suggested this in other places, but if people want the value of Steem to rise, it takes more than just the content on Steemit taking place, money has to be brought in from people who are not Steem users. It would be neat if Steem users who might be taking on Peerhub would also list their items on OpenBazaar to jump into a market that has people spending Bitcoin already and have it converted to Steem instantly https://steemit.com/steemit/@cryplectibles/openbazaar-takes-steem-list-your-art-or-garage-sale-items-now
I agree with you - lots of low percentage twitter or facebook content with no monetary upside. I think thats the value prop here. But I also agree with you about opportunity and community - those are things often overlooked.. But how often do we get the opportunity to talk to each other about our content ? The active community is the true value imo.