Thankfully, there are two things that the sincere have over scammers:
One- we don't try and cash in on the bubbles, we prefer to brew the beer (so we tend to make wiser choices) which means we end up knowing the brewery business better.
Two: we build stronger communities because we learn who to trust the long hard way (which is the only way that works).
Valid points, sharp wit, useful insight - good post. Steemit is still small enough that all we need to do is focus on finding the goodstuff and ignoring the rest, and trusting the blockchain to do what it is designed to do.
In essence - this is the way to deal with abuse of the system: make good content about the problem, as you have elegantly demonstrated.
I hope that this comment section and response to your observations gives you a little hope :)