I know what you are saying. But i would argue "the tendency for people to do what they wouldn't normally do in real life is high".
People always behave depending on a situation. Well not always, nothing is absolute, but we must agree that all of us have a few roles not to be hypocrites. Integrity is very important, but integrity is a trait of a very few. Usually very strong and often tragic personalities.
Humans are prone to adaption depending on the situation, without this trait they would not have survived so long as species. And steemit is just but a simulation of a larger society so it may be that all mistakes made by people are more visible than usual, with economic incentives more pronounced here than on other social media we are already used to. More factors in the game, more variables in the equation, more complex the game.
Tbh i find it totally normal, expectations were different but this is the reality. Even right now i am working on a token model that would prevent in some way or some form concentrations of tokens in very few hands for our project. It is really hard and difficult to build a system that would be impossible to game. If it is possible to build such a system at all. And even if it is, will such a system be attractive to people to build their social relations at all. I know it is philosophical, but maybe we as species are doomed and locked in perpetuity for this type of behavior and no system will be able to solve it still being interesting enough and attractive.
Even though hard to admit, but we love DRAMA.