It's not so hard as you make it seem. If you have experience and are not from India or a third world country, raise your price to at least $50/h, and then just submit human-sounding proposals.

Remember that most of the proposals clients get are bot-submitted ones, by people who don't have the least experience or capability to deliver what they're promising, and it shows. The competition is very weak, is what I'm getting at.

You have to pay to submit proposals, that's true - but a single job you score there will make it worthwhile. It's an investment like any other, and it ends up being much cheaper than adwords or alternatives for finding work.