That was a long time ago, the community has been slowly maturing since the time dollarvigilante joined. You're absolutely right that there's collusive voting, but I have some good news for you. With Hardfork 19, the influence of whales will be diminished by an order of magnitude. Currently, it takes 10,000 minnows to equal a whale. After HF19, it'll be just 100 minnows. So insider/whale/collusive voting will no longer be effective.
Of course, now it's up to the minnows and dolphins to curate responsibly - which is why I made this post.
Also, as Steemit grows and matures, all of this will go away.