I think a change in the culture or at least in the mindset of the general user base is a great idea. It is possible this is going to happen with communities, but once again I think it's going to come down to people wanting to be the one person that gets seen instead of being part of a pool of people where everyone has a strong voice and a good payout.
I also think you're definitely right about gaming the system making things harder. it's not as fun when you know for a fact that your post is not going to make it to trending because you're not using a bid bot. That kind of ruins the joy of it a little bit.