I never really had much problems with the upvote bots. I use them when they are high on voting power to transfer SBD into steem power and get some good value.

As for visibility goes, I don't really think they make that much of a difference. I believe it's much more important to have consistent content about a certain topic and have some real followers with a bit of steem power. Right now most things that are being posted on steemit are pretty random. Many start on steemit with a taking mindset instead of a giving mindset and a no real long term plan which has them quit after posting random things for a while.

I've been using steemover and it has been a great way to automate some of my voting to good content and give back to the ones that support me. It made me get some more steem power to have room for more smaller upvotes as a test.