I would see benefit to this also being implemented by requiring a certain level of SP to receive (and keep) certain benefits once they reach a certain amount of SP, or by providing more benefits to burning SBD.

Yes, that could be even better. As I said, it's not something I have given a huge amount of thought but if you can improve upon the idea so quickly then I am curious to see how well it could be refined with more brains and more thoughts.

I just feel that incentizing power ups should be the main priority, because doing so will get rid of most of the other problems we see on the platform.

More vest = less selling pressure, Incentive = higher demand. The two combined = quickly rising price of STEEM. This would naturally increase a dolphin and minnows influence in regards to rewards.

If you're able to give a penny now, how much will you be able to give should STEEM go back up to 4 dollars? A few times I have been able to click upvote and see a penny appear. I removed the upvote and did it again just to be sure it was my vote that did it.

I know this only happened because it was right below the penny mark, making mine appear to be giving the entire penny.. But, nonetheless it's a surprisingly satisfying feeling just to see that after having a completely ineffective vote.

I think if the price of STEEM is increased through this sort of thing, then even minnows will be able to give cents here and there, and dolphins dollars, and this will inspire people to want to be able to see their votes reward even more- leading to more powering up.

I just think it's something worth discussing further. I definitely like your idea too, as long as the goal is not too difficult to achieve, because then it will do wonders to keep new users on the platforms.

Might be best to have bronze, silver, gold, platinum and graphene level users, determined by how much has been directly powered up, not by STEEM power earned through posting. Then people will always have something to work towards, and a new perk once it is achieved.