There's certainly not a parade of posts that a non-Steemit user would find interesting on the Trending page

You hit the nail on the head here, i for one do not visit the trending page anymore as i see the regular names gracing the page everytime. I was bothered to conclude that perhaps no other person is writing or doing things worthy of huge visibility. Then i realized it's all about how deep one's pocket is, not necessarily about the interesting or catchy nature of the content