the content I make that makes very little can be something like a review of an obscure videogame released in Japan in 1990......

Exactly.

I feel the same way you do. That's why I got out of a voting guild in the early days. I do see that it was necessary in the beginning and may be so today, but the fact that the curators are getting their posts upvoted to the moon is a bad idea. A better idea would be to get a set amount from the steemit account, like an employee.
If the trending pages are not really trending pages, then it does look bad from the outside. I'd much rather know my post really trended by organic votes (bot and human), than be on the Steem Guild, getting basically a free pass to the trending page. It's not an ideal situation.
I had the same feelings from the very beginning and I quickly got out of the guild. It felt wrong to me, that's all. I think paying people to work in the guild by depositing some Steem would be a viable solution. But I think having the Steem Guild members upvote their own posts by whale accounts is the wrong way to do it. Building value is more important than anything, and when things "seem" fishy, no one will benefit long-term.
Thanks for writing this post.