Yes Bots pay far more than any project. Look at @thejohalfiles wallet, he get around 650 SBDs everyday delegating to Bots. Nothing is better than delegating your power to bots all in the name of advertisement.
I have stopped suggesting the minnows to comment, create great content etc etc. I think that doesn't work, you want to reach the trending page buy votes simple. Everyone is doing that, spammers are doing that, memes are trending with far more rewards than a good thoughtful post. If you still want to be visible invest in SBDs and buy votes. Whales/dolphin are delegating to bots and missing the big picture, but who cares and who is listening? Instead of empowering projects/communities they fulfilling their greeds. People would stop powering up, instead they would just keep all the money in SBDs and invest that in buying votes. I do the same and I suggest others to do the same. I mean people working hard on their post and earning pennies, I don't want to give them fake assurances, commenting doesn't help , it helps gaining followers but not rewards.
IMO Bots will affect the business model of steem as well, people needs to accumulate STEEM to push the prices up. Simple supply and demand.
I have stopped looking at my own rewards and just hopeful to get curated every once in a while. Still early for me to expect rewards anyway. Hopefully, I don't need to resort to paid upvotes if after some time of trying to grow organically, I still get pennies. We spend so much time and effort here and I hope that gets rewarded somehow. I still know a lot who consistently create quality content despite pennies so I'll just keep my eyes and support on those. :)