I wouldn't advocate hiding the rewards... it's more of a case of "what's your lead argument" when you market?

If your argument is "Make money on Steemit!" and you publicize Jeff Berwick's famous $40,000 you'll get a whole different set of people than if you say "Steemit is a censorship resistant social content platform, and we reward quality content!"

When I joined I was excited about the idea of a social content site with rewards... but to be honest, when I started reading external content about Steemit, it sounded a bit scammy. And I experienced the same feedback when I aired the idea to fellow bloggers and content creators. BUT... I am a "content creator" (who happens to like being rewarded for content) not an "investor" or "income opportunity seeker."

I do get what you're saying though, expectations should perhaps be balanced

Agreed. And I would really expect no more. The challenge of the moment seems to be a lack of balance as the "clicking buttons for pennies" brigade is starting to drown out real human interaction and engagement... which is a concern (in the longer term), because communities are built by PEOPLE, not by code, bots and automation.

One of the factors @penguinpablo tracks in his daily stats is "comments per post" and that number has been declining for months. And if we keep in mind that upvote services auto-post thousands of time, that means the "human interaction" aspect is really tanking... and I see that as problematic, maybe not "now," but definitely in the longer term.