I think that is fair.
I don't think Steem will ever be a content discovery site promoting the absolutely best content in the world.
I don't even think the world wants that. :)
What I do think is right now the crowd is so thin that anyone who isn't anti-social and who can make a decent post can take this time to network, engage and build an audience.
In my opinion Networking is a better skill than creating fantastic content. Life just doesn't work that way, name recognition matters, friends matter.
People can call it circle-jerking all they want but if you understand how brains work, we tend to move towards what we recognize.
Anyway, I think what you said is fair and I don't think we will ever move past the "It's not fair crowd".
If they had better options they wouldn't hang around yelling it's not fair.
So, I feel pretty good about the future. We just need the altcoin depression to pass, it is already easing up. :)