Top 20 makes $7k/month, and yes they are ALL worth it. They all do the max # of blocks, they earn it all. Server Costs are around $700/month (or more!) so 10% (or more) of the pay they receive. Now top 50 actually make a "profit" by most people's measure, and it takes at least top 80 (give or take) to "break even" and pay for your server costs. However, a lower slot has less hardware needs. At these steem prices, no one is getting rich. Think of steem witnesses as MINERS. They deserve to make a profit. If TPTB would deem that the top 100 all got the same # of block producing opportunities, lower hardware costs and a more spread out payout would make it easier on everyone. But they set it up for top 20. I project that in the future, if steem rises to around $10, that we will have many more blocks to spread around. I would love to see a distribution chart among the witnesses if our traffic rises by a factor of 10x or more. You know ppl will be clamoring to join SteemPeak and similar UI's...