I had also a pause of about one month of not using bid bots at all, until a couple of weeks ago when I threw some SBD in exchange of upvotes. I wanted to see if there was any extra attention added to my posts when they had some good amount of upvotes, but it wasn't anything different. In that month though when I haven't used it at all I had pretty nice upvotes so I concluded that, for me, they're of no use. I consider very important to share some pretty good quality posts and have some wealthy audience in order to be successful around here. These are the two important things that I am investing in right now. Improving my blogging skills and creating a network of steemians that upvote my work constantly.
Good luck with your one month without bid bots!