I cant say one way or the other if this particular post is a legitimate plea for help or not. One thing I can say for certain is the community as a whole has chosen to accept it as so. At the time of this (my) comment, there are 2611 views and 750 votes, providing the author with what I assume will be a decent payout. To that I say "congrats" and good luck to the author. If it truly is a farewell to Steemit - somehow I doubt it...
That being said, my comment is really focused on the larger point you were making - content. In the short time I have been here (on Steemit) I have read works from a few truly great authors, journalists, poets, and bloggers that I never would have had the opportunity to read without the platform. Unfortunately the time it takes me to sort through all the noise makes finding the truly great content almost impossible. This has been a recurring issue for me - someone who enjoys reading, as much as writing.
In my opinion, (and I have said this in other comments) there has to be much more emphasis placed on the curation of posts, and more incentive for people to actually "curate". Right now there is very little incentive for anyone to spend the time necessary to sort through all the noise. Increasing the percentage of rewards allocated to "curation" would solve the problem of "noise" almost overnight. Just my opinion, and as I always say - your just gonna have to make up your own dam mind...