+1
As a redditor for 5+ years, most votes are bots and the number is meaningless. This is the same on Steemit and I completely agree with this. Engagement is another story though -- there could be some economics built into posts that drive engagement (right now there's not).
This is where my ideas about groups and integrated chat systems helps. Especially the latter, because it is a place in which like minds can interact in real time and spin off ideas, or even just to organise external activities that base their economics and accounting, and put their marketing, on the Steem blockchain.
This post is past the initial reward period, and I didn't actually specifically write it just for rewards, I wrote it because I want to help people understand Steem:
https://steemit.com/ascensionteam/@l0k1/steem-is-not-a-blogging-platform-steem-is-an-ad-hoc-public-and-transparent-corporation-let-me-explain
If these principles are refined, expanded, and integrated, I think the solution of engagement is solved. A lot of what drives engagement cannot be directly integrated into Witness nodes, or easily quantified, and the mechanisms of users using Steem as their Department banking system and investment pool gets around this issue, so you can market, bank and account your little enterprise's activities, and by the simplicity of also doing so, the integration of Steem into the enterprise's accounting and fund management system, will naturally anchor more vested and held funds in the platform, where it continues to maintain the ability to scale up and keep rewarding good ideas and good content.