I wish I seen this post sooner. I'm not sure if you know but there's currently other interfaces that can be used to interact with the Steem blockchain. They reward new tokens + the regular blockchian tokens. Anything you post on them auto gets posted on your regular Steem blog.

You may want to check them out before calling it quits. I managed to become a whale on at least two of those new Steem interfaces being called Tribes.

As for downvotes, I got a few as well. #newsteem went over board and downvote happy but it seems it has slowed down to a more reasonable rate. There's also those going around downvoting for shits and giggles (most times their downvote is meaning less due to their low SP and VP.

Anyways, don't give up yet. When the price is low thats the time to collect. Its possible Steem may never recover but if it does you wish you stuck around getting as much as you can as it will be much harder to collect if it moons again.