I agree with what you are saying, good content that takes time and effort does deserve to be rewarded. I've written articles that have taken a number of hours of continuous work to compile and have only seen a few dollars in reward. I've also written something that took a matter of few minutes and seen twice the reward.

It will take the users of steemit to see the value of good quality content and move away from simply upvoting stuff from users that they are accustomed to supporting regardless of what they pump out.

I've even heard whales say that they grew tired of producing good quality content and just started intentionally pumping crap out to ensure they maintained their earnings. This was disappointing to hear as I'd expect them to be the ones to lead by example.

Anyway, all we can do is consistently pump out good quality material, and actively reward and comment on the posts that we enjoy. Hopefully this will be a trend that will picked up by those that follow us.