Is unique content really better than duplicate? or Why is Matt Cutts so chummy with search engine spammers?

I’ve always believed that the best way to make a successful website is to have solid unique content. First, we need to make some assumptions. Unique content can be useful, or useless. Duplicate content can be useful or useless. So, I could spend an hour writing up an article that would be of no use to anyone, while I could go to an article site and spend an hour hunting down useful articles. But, the big monkey wrench in this equation is that if you write uniqe content that is useful, people are going to steal it from you and publish it under their own name on their own websites. Google will reward them for doing it. So, what’s the better business plan then? Spending tons of your time to create great content, and having search engine spammers take it and publish it as their own? Or, be a search engine spammer and take whatever content you want? From what I’ve seen, Google gives bigger checks to search engine spammers than it does to people who create genuine unique content. Oh, I know, my perception of it is skewed, but really why is Matt Cutts so chummy with the search engine spammers?