Confirmed!
It is true it is difficult to attract the attention of big accounts and to score big upvotes, but it is not impossible. I think it is important not to set too high expectations. It requires hard work to produce quality content and it takes time to build your reputation(not talking about the STEEM reputation ;) ) and build a following.

The changes suggested for the upcoming hardfork, to move away from a linear reward curve, will hopefully have the positive effects to encourage both production and curation of quality content.