Hey grouchy, I feel those are valid points. If you look back at Youtube back around 2006 and probably for the next couple years the platform was definately still finding itself.
I do somewhat agree with what you mean. There's a lot of great content around here, however I do have to agree that there's a lot of pandering in the sense of if I put up a post drooling over how awesome Steemit is, which in turn turns into a big Steemit "circle jerk" lol as you pointed out, I'll get a lot of upvotes so people kind of do that at times.
The cool thing though is you have the power to do something about it. You can create the same type of great content that you want to see, and you also have the power to reward content you like and not reward content you don't like. As you grow your Steempower on here your voice and your opinion will have even more weight behind it.
I get what your saying but be patient, while this platform has been around for a while it's still definately finding itself IMHO.