It is hard to get answers for questions in blog post if you are under rep 60+. Over that it is likely doesn't matter how long or engaging your post, because people will upvote it, betting on the curation fee. And if a post get hot, I see many without real value, hundreds will follow. But if your rep is low, hardly have a chance to make big money. It deserves much more work than putting in a bigger sum and just commenting and upvoting. Fishes will follow straight away because of the voting power.
I try to avoid upvoting whales, just the important ones, and find interesting contents.
It's not a complain, I am sure the whales busy as well, but there are circles who vote very rarely outside theirs.
Commenting back is a good thing, thanks for sharing your thoughts, we just have to ignore those spam-like comments or bots. Not everybody understands Steem properly in the first month or so, or just want quick money, but they will give up after some time I am sure. But more quality works could be curated by those who have the power, it costs them nothing.
Followmefollowyouupvotemeupvoteyousendmoney :)