A witness could easily say vote for me and get x rewards and there isn’t anything we could really do about it

This is false. We can vote them out.

EOS has a particular stake distribution, with those stakeholders having a particular perspective and voting behavior, and Steem has a different one.

In fact, many DPoS chains have ended up like EOS, in far less than Steem's three years of life, and Steem has stubbornly resisted it up until this point. One theory is that the social layer makes a difference, perhaps directly since we can get to know witnesses and easily interact with them, perhaps indirectly by attracting a different set of stakeholders. Another possible reason is that Steem was forked to cut witness rewards specifically to a level that was seen as sufficient and sustainable in a reasonable estimation of weak market conditions and no more, which somewhat avoids it being viewed as a pot of cash that is up for grabs to fight over (clearly the case on EOS, maybe or maybe not on other chains).

Whatever the reason, something is indeed different here. The future holds no guarantees but if you want to keep Steem healthy you will not embrace antisocial behavior but both advocate and act against it. System changes are possible too, but nobody really knows what they are. In fact, Steem is the healthiest DPoS chain I know about in terms of witness voting not being captured by cartels and rent seeking, so we have no examples to use for how to make it better, only for what not to do to avoid making it worse.