I just have a concern-- based on a LOT of years of web writing experience-- that the Steemit rewards structure might encourage "click bait" rather than "quality content" as the site grows and draws a larger and larger crowd from more mainstream sources.

I think you're right, that is the immediate incentive. Don't forget that after HF17 it'll be a 7 day pending payout period instead of the two 24 - 48 hours, and month periods. This will change things a bit but probably won't overly change the effect you describe.

One thing this means that larger bodies of work are better chopped up and dragged out piecemeal over a few posts. This isn't necessarily a bad thing for active experience on the platform, perhaps it's like a TV show cut into episodes instead of a feature movie.

I wonder if there could be an archive initiative? I keep thinking of app ideas to apply to Steem(it) without actually changing it fundamentally, and this might be another candidate. We could brainstorm about how to reincentivize this based on reward shares or something similar, sort of like a trail or guild?