Good day to you @hungryhustle. This is the key point for me:
if people start promoting STEEM on their well established blogs, then it will bring in so many of their followers onto the platform.
It only feels like a "hack" to you because you have met the conditions of high quality in the eyes of the curation /rewarding models. There are no free meals - you deserve your reward for the great work that you do!
Yes @cryptocurator. I think on STEEM, it goes without saying. If you do not post high quality content, you won't get anything. Same goes with @steempress-io and other applications. Quality should not be compromised if you want to succeed here. Cheers! :-)