I'm not sure I understand your argument. "SEO for great content" to me just means you have great content, and you Optimize it for Search Engines so people can fine it easier/higher.
I’m saying simply that what the algorithm cares about and what causes it to rank high is completely orthogonal to “good content”.
Search for any subject where you consider yourself a subject matter expert. Are the top results what you would consider good? This is excluding first party vendor content.
