I understand your feeling, but I do have some clarifications for ya.
"Wow, I have no problem with using bots to vote up quality content" That's great! The question is what quality content is. I've had previous posts promoted in the same way, I don't recall anyone complaining. Perhaps this content is not quality enough for you, which is fine.

"how much the author has spent getting this onto trending." There's the reason! I like writing and posting artwork that I make, and I also like people seeing it and reacting to it. But on Steemit, to get a LOT of visibility, you do have to get into Trending; it's set up in a similar way that advertising is set up. And yes, that's what I tried to do. If when people find it they decide my content was reviled or not helpful or interesting to anyone, then that's a different argument.