I agree @troglodactyl. I think the main issue here is platform interface. Fundamentally, Steemit was designed as incentive for content, and that incentive is what drives quality-supposedly. But there will always be loopholes in the system that cannot be foreseen until it happens.

An example here would be the advantages of Social Media, a key driver to making the system work. It's what separates big payouts from small payouts.
It's definitely not quality. I've come across decent, and even great long-form content here that doesn't pay over a hundred dollars.

Leveraging in the success of Social Media is a great. Then again, it can't be helped to miss the other side of that -- lower quality content.

At levels of a few thousand followers or more, conversion rate of your followers will go down with low quality content. But in exchange, 4 hour research turns into a 5 minute opinion.

Extrapolate. "Hmmm I used to make $4,000 per day of research each post. What if I just decided to make 10-15 $500 posts a day taking me 5 minutes to make each-finish my work in 2 hours and save myself 75% of the time I used to take. Could that be a good idea? Hmm.."

Nothing is fool-proof. We just have to do our due diligence of voting on what's right to be voted on, and the system will remain to be what it is today.