There is a self declared "elite" group of users on reddit who are always echoing exactly your sentiments to the point that it's almost a chant: groupthink, low quality comments, uniformed discourse! Of course, recognizing that there is a need and desire by some for a place to have more detailed and nuanced discussions is not bad in of itself. Arguably its' a very good thing.
Where it turns bad is in their approach to a solution. Instead of "hey, people want a place where they can have more interesting discussions, let's go create one, promote, and moderate it!", they think "hm, these people with their memes and images, that's a problem. They shouldn't do that. We need to stop them and show them the right way to run a subreddit!"
This latter thinking is incredibly intolerant, arrogant, and dangerous. It's the same type of thing that leads to laws being passed based on a particular religion or other philosophy that tries to ban thoughts different to theirs.
This is why I say that reddit doesn't have a "problem" with low quality content. That's what a lot of people enjoy and they should have a place they can do that. If you want to change peoples minds, use words, not force.
All that being said, I recognize that you didn't actually advocate that reddit be changed. More to your point, as others have said, one of the great things about reddit is that people are free to start their own subreddit and make it into whatever they wish. There are a lot of smaller more heavily moderated subreddits that have great discussion. People who are upset with the bigger subs should look for these or even create their own.