An interesting parallel lies in a view of stock market trading:

• There is technical trading, which looks at trade patterns, floors, ceilings, and other market defined attributes of a stock. Technical traders aim to make money by trading on how the stock's market performance, and tend to work for near-term profits. Buy on Monday, Sell on Friday when the market swings, for example
• The opposite of that lies in fundamental trading. In this strategy, the stock is valued on the company's performance, P/E , dividends, and debt ratios, for example. This strategy is a long term strategy, and is based on the premise that the value of the stock will grow in market value

The similarity to Steemit lies in the tactics of curating; the behavior that you describe so well in your post is similar to technical trading. Curators who search out new authors of quality, or seek to find a "hidden gem" of a post are taking an approach more in line with the fundamentals trading concept.

I'm not going to argue that one strategy is better than the other. For my own part, I did well in the stock market by using both approaches. I bought undervalued stock, and traded in options.

However, there was underlying value to be had on the market, and undervalued companies could make profit without being traded on the market.

On the Steemit platform, new users who are unrecognized are going to quit taking part in and building value for the Steemit "market".

I would suggest Steemit investors that want to maintain the long term value of the platform diversify their curating approach, and spend some time digging up new content in addition to chasing the trending dragon.

Ansd since I haven't said this yet, well-written!