Yes, people would do posts about their intention to leave and all and then it was more welcomed to leave. Like i said their were many flags. So basically, there were people leaving because of too many flags and yes, very valid reasons but did they really leave? Many simply went into-the-box to come back out of it anew.

This was me some months after I joined steemit, I got tired of the $0 payouts but I came back stronger and better after two months break.
So this statement below is absolutely true.

So have many people taken breaks from steeming in the past? Yes and that is bound to happen regardless as we are not robots.