First off, kudos to what you do for a living. I have a couple of friends who teach Special Ed. From what I hear, it's hard and frustrating at times, but rewarding. Somebody needs to make a difference in these kids lives!

Now regarding the bit about "using bots or having connections" to succeed at the onset... well... now that's the problem isn't it? The fundamental idea of Steemit's user curated content is terrific, but the inherent lack of centralization is also what's killing it. So the idea of "if you can't beat em'... join em'" comes to mind here. Anybody who's has a significant amount of Steem, as a rational economic player, should be expected to work in their self interest to succeed one the platform. And if the means are through self upvoting placeholder content or using a connection to a steem whale or using a voting bot... well, it's hard to discern if one methodology of success is more egregious than another. Arguments made that using connections or bots is just as artificial as self upvoting. So we're presented with a sad, but true, race to the bottom where people are forced to something people may deem "unethical" to succeed.

So going back to your first point, i regrettably agree with you. I'm also not sure what people are supposed to do on here. LOL. It's a strange moral dilemma mixed with economic incentive and lack of oversight which makes the Steemit situation "unique". Maybe in the grand scheme of things, it's just one large social experiment?