Maybe you aren't truly defeatist but just don't quite understand how downvoting works.

When rewards are removed from posts such as happened in a huge scale in the past week those rewards are redistributed to every other payout. Since the top posts are getting rekt by downvotes and the bid bots are complaining they aren't even getting vote buyers at all (because buyers are afraid of getting downvoted), then to say that it doesn't benefit the rank and file is simply incorrect. Certainly thousands, and possibly tens and thousand of STEEM have been redistributed to the rank and file. We've also seen at least one initiative promising to go after vote circles which will send even more rewards to the rank and file.

I'm frankly more concerned about what happens longer term and whether we will fall back into complacency once the novelty of slamming Trending and other milkers with downvotes wears off. In that case, it will stop helping the rank and file and we'll have to figure out what to do next. But for now it absolutely is helping the rank and file.