Creation is very personal and the determination of value is also very personal. What you value is not always going to be the same as what I value. There is also the politics involved in some cases, and some authors simply have followers who are more devoted and likely to upvote everything. At the end of the day I believe a post needs to be as long as it needs to be to cover the subject at hand, whether that's 100 words or 10,000 words.
If Earnest Hemingway were alive and writing on Steemit I believe his posts would be quite short. Would they be valuable? One would have to think that they would be, but if Earnest was a minnow he likely wouldn't earn much, would he?
Haha, I bet Hemingway would've had the coolest posts, only whiskey, and war pictures, lol. The problem is that minnows need to get themselves noticed some way and most of them are not willing to put in the work, and they only expect rewards. ;)
I'm sure the posts would've been legendary since he was the one who said to write drunk and edit sober. I haven't been here that long, but do get the impression that many people start with the idea that money will just fall out of the ether for them. Not true in the least, and it isn't going to get any easier. I guess a bit of luck helps, but as we all know the best way to get lucky is through hard work.