There have always been serious writers and there have always been low-rent scribblers. You should not imagine that it was any different in the ancient world. Here is a little something from Martial.
Cui legisse satis non est epigrammata centum,
nil illi satis est, Caediciane, mali.
Caedicianus, if my reader
After a hundred epigrams still
Wants more, then he's a greedy feeder
Whom no amount of swill can fill.
(tr. James Michie)