Nice analogy of the force field. I think the rewards are deceptive. I am only about a week in and it has been rough seeing my post rewards drop from $10 to $20 to $1 to $2, but like you said it is kind of a sham. You are really just moving SBD around to STEEM at a loss. From now on I am going to shift my focus back to powering up. Building my SP to be able to give back to others seems to be my best bet.