I'd actually say that the circle-jerks are the worst thing on steemit. I checked out @me-tarzan and it was just bizarre. There are only 18 accounts with higher reputation to bring down that abomination. Most bid-bot rounds end up at a loss. So it's just payed promotion. Whether they deserve the trending page is questionable. But looking at old interviews of @ned he wanted people to buy STEEM to get into the trending page. Bid-bots are simply a market solution for the promotion feature that doesn't work.
Unless a person get lots of organic upvotes or STEEM price has a bull run, id-bot users will eventually run out of funds. circle-jerkes never run out of funds. They can only grow. I think the white-list system is the best path. But there will be other bid-bots. There are only 16 bots with a vote value over $17 If these bots can work together the level of abuse can be greatly reduced IMHO.