You're not alone in these sentiments. There are significant efforts being made to improve the platform. Check out @SteemCleaners who are working hard on wiping out some of the rampant spam and bot abuse.
I'm contributing to these fixes myself, because I want to see this platform succeed and I recognize the need. There's many others in the community who share these opinions and are contributing in their own way.
The platform is not dead. It is under constant development. Hardfix 20 includes some significant changes to the platform that should help to address some of the multi-account bot abuse that's taking place.
Many high profile whales are trying to push changes to the system outside of code. GrumpyCat has been downvoting bot votes that are affecting posts older than 3.5 days old. BernieSanders led a campaign to downvote one of the most major earners on the platform, Haejin as he feels that this user is eating up an unfair amount of the reward pool through posting too often. Battles are being fought on the daily as users try to define exactly what is and isn't acceptable conduct, and different factions fight for their vision of the platform.
Keep bringing up the problems as you see them. Engage in discussions with others on SteemIt.Chat and meet people who might have the same vision as you. If enough people make their voices heard, we can influence change.