You approach this in the same way I do - I follow just one curation trail at the moment - I also upvote any comments made by a tiny number of my favorite creators whom I know very well. I am able to follow up using "account operations - toggling the 'out', 'upvotes' or 'comments' feature on @steemchiller 's steemworld tool, every single upvote that goes out as a result of my following a curation trail. I do it somewhat obsessively on a daily basis or at least every 3 days. This way I discover a ton of great content out there because I get to read the content plus the curation trail @upv4life constantly adds new members who support the project too. I use the open source steemauto tools by steem witness @mahdiyari for following curation trails ;-)

So a trail CAN lead to this side benefit - discovery. It beats looking at the trending page! I am still keen on supporting @megabot with delegation too. I get daily returns on my delegation and the accounts being upvoted are cleared and reviewed so I feel all right on that front. One should weigh up profit and acting responsibly. The bots imo are great because they give everyone a fair chance instead of having the whales support content which they agree with only. It isn't all about quality when you look at the content carefully - it's all politics. There is a lot of noise and hype made about bots and s&itposts - I disagree with all that and recognise that most of the garbage is supported by a handful of powerful projects which self-righteously claim to be all about democracy and quality. What is actually happening is they are recreating a google-type enclave by all their scare propaganda using spam scams and the like to get everyone on board with their opinions, while the accounts they support run away with the spoils of the day.