This is a good explanation of idle Steemit. Though you mentioned a small part of reward pool rape and unjust things, I think its time the whales should save the platform from being just a not operated income source.
If minnows are not motivated to create good content then there will be just whales feeding the bots and vice versa.
There are great curation groups like busy, adsactly, and Curie but their standards are way too high for a newbie to meet. With that said, a newbie gets lost with no motivation left for himself.