I feel that the long term payouts could possibly be better for writers, but it's hard to tell without having two steemits each with exactly the same qualities but with just the payout parameter being 30 days or forever, and then collecting the data to tell which is better over time.

This won't happen of course. Maybe it would be better to think about your payout as a whole, rather than the payout on any individual post. Although you won't get pay for a post older than 30 days, you may get payout on newer posts if someone finds your older post.

Plus, since Steemit articles rank Very High in Google searches, you will still build your own brand by people finding your older excellent articles while searching for terms that relate to your article. This build name recognition and will ultimately benefit you.

So basically I take a wider approach to being here. It's more about the whole experience than any one post, to me. But it's great to hear all opinions here, stated with respect to those who differ. We're not drama free here, but I find less of it compared to other places online!