Many good thoughts--five days later, I'm upvoting and commenting. Your frustration reflects the way a lot of people feel who are trying to get a foothold here. As for your system--I would find it very unpleasant to try to time my upvotes and pick posts by potential reward. I try to look for posts I actually like. Rarely will I upvote something that obviously took little effort. I love to write, and spend a lot of time on my posts. I comment on good posts and only say what I honestly believe. Will this lead to success? I don't know. But I am comfortable in my skin, going forward in this way. The limiting factor of course, is the vote ration we get each day. This means I have to be judicious in meting out those votes. That's the hard part for me. Pulling back, when I'd like to endorse. I'll follow you, even though that may mean little. If you post good content, I'll try not to miss it. If my vote ration isn't depleted, you'll get my vote, no matter the potential reward. Good luck on Steemit.