Quality is subjective.
Some people ramble through a post. Some readers read the ramble and think it's great and I'll read it and think 'what's the author's point here?".
Some can write a short post and express themself well and others need a long post to do so.
The curation projects try to find and support good content. Sometimes they tend to start to drift toward favoured authors, they're human. Some put controls in place to offset that issue.
I'm a tad biased but I'd say DreemPort is the project that gives people exposure and encourages engagement while denying anyone opportunity to give their friends traction.
As for photography, it has to be one of the most spammed forms of posts on Hive. A good photographer showing some contrast between what is good and poor quality makes for an interesting post.
A mediocre photographer who adds some interesting context in text to their images also makes for an interesting post.
Reading experience matters a lot and contributes toward building a following.
I totally agree that there is a fine line between interesting content, length of post and context. However, some things do have some structure. If we take as an example review of a video game, there should be a short description of what is it about, some game experience and useful data (system requirements, etc) and of course good summary with maybe some pointing system or recommendations - pros/cons, etc. It is much easier to make a few screenshots and write sure short "review" or rather just summarize other's people's reviews and wait for the reward. And if you ask me there is not much experience if the post has 350 words. I love to get some decent information from the post. Tell me something I didn't know, show me something beautiful... Give me some weight.
I look forward to Hive and I will do my best,
Cheers