Google Turns Me Crazy

With the recent Google updates, things are seeming crazy around me. Let me brief you, I have a finance related business which I am running since many years and it was on top of all my competitors in serps for most of the premium keywords in my niche.

After the recent updates, few of my competitors sites have pushed me down, (not completely pushed down, may be 6-7 spots down) even though I have a site that is better in all terms compared to theirs, from content to backlinks and user experience. (all my backlinks are natural and acquired over time through reference etc)

The sites which are currently on top (that outranked me) have duplicate content in it. Those content can be found on their social profiles and some of them are posted even to article directories. (same content everywhere) I always keep an eye on how my competitors build links to their sites and I found that none of them are regularly involved on seo, most of them have opted for PPC instead of seo (even I run ppc for my site).

Why is it that sometimes Google behave strangely? Is Google really working on getting rid of spam by releasing each and every animal from its zoo? (Panda, Penguin, Humming etc) :confused::confused::confused: If so, why are me competitors raking higher who have got bad and duplicate content? I am not complaining or saying that I lost my business due to this, since I don't completely rely on Google for business. :-p

But just wanted to know what others think about Google. (someone else on the same ship?)