If it’s any consolation, Barry, after 8 months on Medium I’ve learned that the most interesting and intellectually coherent articles are rarely curated. Medium has to aim for the middle-ground audience in order to attract and retain sufficient readership, and so it’s inevitable that most curated articles correspond to the topics (and reading level) that most easily achieve these goals. Personally I’d rather have 1,000 readers who enjoy the content of my essays than 20,000 readers who want to be fed run-of-the-mill content. So please keep writing for those who can appreciate your efforts!