Its true. SP is king and hard work/commitment is simply not enough on its own. Pretty much anybody that I started steemit with, has given up and this is actually the real big problem like you mentioned.
Do I blame them for leaving? No. Quality content plays a part in it for sure, but being noticed by a whale which will support you consistently is far and few. You could have 10000 followers and still only get a dollar on your post which you spent 10 hours curating.
I'm seeing steemit become more of a bid bot war more so then a platform that rewards solid content. Thats not a good direction imo but people have capitalise on this and moved ten fold faster then people that only rely on producing good content. Maybe we are playing the system wrong? I only recently discovered bid bots which can explain some unnatural growth for some fresh accounts. I just checked out J2R and he does indeed produce good work, I'll surely support him moving forward!
Great comment @gamersclassified
I am pretty ambivalent towards bid bots. In principle I don't think they are good for the system, but the system allows them, so you cant really blame people for using them.