(Just realized how long this is, sorry)
I am not one who is allowed to complain about lengthy content ;)
There are definitely things to be tried and tested to see if there are indeed better ways than currently. @heimindanger should provide at lease direct links to the content so people can actually judge it rather than blind downvoting. I also think that at the very least that all bots used, big or small, should be visible tagged by the UI as promoted.
As said, there may be some middle ground but that requires the people 'in charge' to join the conversations.