I think you're largely correct and I enjoyed your honesty and humor. I've seen time and time again authors not engaging with their commenters, churning out wordy nonsense and being arrogant to boot.
I don't think everyone should write super in-depth posts, or that those who don't should be punished or ridiculed. I do however defend those who choose to attempt the in-depth path as a pretty normal angle on trying to build an audience. It might be for personal gain, to advance (or shill) certain ideas or just for the fun of it but it's not necessarily elitist. Thinking hard and writing about it is important and again, very very normal.
We are now in a world where so much knowledge is available that self study by almost anyone with the time is possible, and possibly life changing. The elites have lost a lot of their control of knowledge and I think that trend will continue massively. I advocate throwing off the appearance of elitism from knowledge as something standing in the way of it's normalcy.
Good point on the scammers and frauds. It is a litmus test for what gets rewards. However rather than see it as exposing a requirement on authors, as you suggest, you can see it as the lowest cost / highest chance solution for the scammer so I think you're looking at it backwards (but not wrong). It shows (a) that copy pasta is cheap and (b) there is a good chance of reward for something deep and interesting.
But as I said bring on the cats etc., but expect everyone to be into what they're into.