Consider me stimulated.
Ultimately, I think you are correct. The spam on Steemit will slowly die away as algorithms improve just like spam emails. Spam emails are still created, and they are still sent, but they are no longer seen; therefore, they are no longer a problem.
Steemit should eventually evolve that direction where low-grade content is more easily scrubbed or hidden from the platform completely.
If the platform survives this ugly and painful birth, it has the potential to really thrive.