Bug bounty programs are as legitimate as the company wants them to be by providing the time of engineers to analyze the bugs and the funds to reward researches. I don't think they can be bogus exactly, they are what they are.
Now, the reason they exist is because bugs have a value outside the bounty program. So you, as a researcher, either have something you can profit from (in which case the choice to report to the bounty is your personal choice and there are others should you have to reanalyze) or you have a worthless curiosity and you can't really complain that no one is giving you money.
It sounds like you spent time entering a 'marketplace' that you don't have the capability to fully participate in, if you're all hung up on Facebook turning over a reward.