i think that you have your priorities right on here. Its very important to get the basics right when you are starting off. Post good content, interact and share with your followers.
It's fine for the whales to jerk each other off because they have the power to do it. It's the same with governments and big corporations.
The difference here is that we can change the outcome. The more minnows that grow and support each other then the more of the reward pool that we will share. Unless you are willing to buy 100k of STEEM then it is going to take effort to grow your account. Most of the whales are there because they joined so early that STEEM was really cheap and not many people were involved in the reward pool.
That is gradually changing. It would be massively expensive to buy whale status and there are so many users that you need a lot of votes to claim from the rewards. So every day the whales are getting less and less.
All you need to do is grow an active and loyal following so that you can keep catching up.