But that's after all a very subjective matter, we can't embed quality standards in "code". For all I know some people might think a re-posted meme is worth $50 just because it made them laugh a little.

https://steemit.com/steemit/@tarazkp/worth-it-or-not-lessons-from-zuckerberg

On the same matter, nothing speaks against down-voting such posts either.

they have to be seen to be reviewed for downvoting, indroduseyoursel, or whatever it was probably isn't going to get seen. Plus, there has to be the will to flag without earning (which historically has been left to bernie and now grumpycat etc) and the spare stake to burn (which is 'tied up' currently). If this was less widespread and the old large curators were still in the waters, the chances of many more flags would increase but, many of the old curators delegate to the bots.

I see a bigger threat in other aspects of this ecosystem like the growing "dept-ratio" with SBD never being converted into STEEM via the on-chain mechanisms etc... but that's a completely different discussion...

Doesn't this tie in with the bidbots taking SBD?

but I digress... transparency on paid votes is without a doubt a good thing... I believe the bot should maybe even lower the threshold and start reporting 5$ and up... If someone buys votes, they should own it,

It would have 3000 comments a day. ;)

and too many vote bots went stealth "to avoid being spammy"...

Too much done via stealth here.