RE: VEST Rewards Are More Important Than Post Price
Interesting analysis and good to know how to use Piston to mine this information. You are right, it is easy to fall into the trap of only thinking about that dollar amount.
Another good way to think about this is that there's a fixed amount (percentage?) of Steem to distribute everyday, and the value of that Steem in USD is always changing. Since the big summer price spike, the value has been trending down. A $300 pay out a few months ago is basically equivalent to a $30 pay out now (roughly, I haven't done the exact math, the point is the USD value of all those big whale votes has gone down). But those two pay outs might be the same in terms of Steem Power / vests. So trying to compare the USD amount is like comparing apples & oranges; comparing the underlying vests is as you say a truer representation of how much you are improving over time.
Unfortunately I think most average users will remain more fixated on the USD number. I kind of wish there was a way to change the pay outs to display in vests instead, to encourage people to think that way.
True, the $$$ has a significant impact on us, as I've talked about before. I too would love to have an option to show VEST values. Unfortunately, even the white paper doesn't really explain VESTS well, IMO.
My impression is that vests can be thought of as the smallest sub-unit that Steem Power can be divided into, and the code that runs the Steem blockchain works in units of vests, not Steem Power (correct me if I'm wrong, as I think you have a better understanding than me). Steem Power is mainly an aid for humans, an easier, more digestible number to display to the end users of the system.
That makes sense, but it's also a bit more complicated than that since the ratio between VESTs and Steem actually changes over time. So... yeah. It's confusing stuff. :)